


Bitter Pills

by sounds like gibberish (preciselypotter)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Timeline, Alternate Universe, Bisexual Hinata Shouyou, Coming of Age, LGBTQ Themes, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-02
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2018-09-03 11:39:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 71,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8711215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/preciselypotter/pseuds/sounds%20like%20gibberish
Summary: Tsukishima pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose and looks sideways at Shoyo. He sneers and mouths:"You got a problem, shrimp?"Shoyo knows that within a month, he's going to kill this bastard.Or: What happens when two people meet before they're supposed to?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Shout out to Akichin for the suggestion of these two meeting as kids and sparking the idea!
> 
> I've been pretty hesitant to post this...its part of a set with another fic I'm working on. Which isn't to say they're at all related, more like, they're two sides of the same coin? I didn't want to post one without the other. But writing the other one is so tricky!! Weird, because writing Hinata's POV is actually more of a challenge for me...so anyway...here we go I guess...

It’s probably the second day of practice that really brings it home.

Because, well, on the first day, everyone was in such a flurry to introduce themselves and get adjusted to the new feel of school—of junior high, now!—that the really of his situation was way down below the clouds Shoyo had his head stuck in.

But on the second day, Shoyo realizes: he's the shortest person in the gym.

 _Makes sense, makes sense,_ he tells himself. it's junior high. Everyone is still growing. Some kids might have already reached their peak height, and some will sprout up like bean poles in the next three years.

Yep. Like a bean pole. Like a goddamn sunflower. That’s Shoyo. He’s gonna be the tallest sunflower in this school by his third year. He can _feel_ it.

Except…no. He kind of already knows. He's going to stay the shortest person in the gym.

“Hinata Shoyo,” he introduces himself, formally, to the team. “I…I didn't actually play volleyball in elementary! I played soccer. But I'm gonna be a great volleyball player, I promise.”

No one says anything to encourage him, but then, no one says anything to cut him down.

Next to Shoyo is the tallest first year, and the kid is possibly taller than all of the second years too. Shoyo wonders if he'll ever get that tall or if he'll be stuck at this embarrassing height for the rest of his life. He hopes not. He can jump, but the nets here are higher than the ones in his neighborhood’s youth center.

“Tsukishima Kei,” the boy next to Shoyo says. He sounds incredibly bored. “I played on a boy scouts team from third to sixth grade as a middle blocker. Nice to meet you.”

Shoyo has never heard a more sarcastic greeting. He stares up at Tsukishima, blinks a couple of times, frowns.

Tsukishima pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose and looks sideways at Shoyo. He sneers and mouths:

_You got a problem, shrimp?_

Shoyo knows that within a month, he's going to kill this bastard.

*

Within a month, Shoyo does not kill that bastard.

The main contributing factor is probably Yamaguchi Tadashi, Tsukishima’s best friend. If people in this world got good things coming to them based on how nice they were, Tadashi wouldn't stop receiving. So Shoyo can't bring himself to upset Tadashi by burying his best friend somewhere in the woods late at night.

Not that Tsukishima makes it easy to resist.

Within a week Tsukishima is quickly assimilated into the starting lineup. He isn't a particularly skilled player, so far as Shoyo can see, but he’s damn tall. Height matters in this game far more than raw enthusiasm, which is about all Shoyo has going for him.

He quickly learns that volleyball is mostly technique, and Shoyo might have the reflexes, but he knows nothing. Most of his practice time is spent learning the basics, like how to receive (he's terrible at it), how to pass (he's marginally better at this), how to serve (he hits a serve into his senpai’s head the first go-around and now he's nervous every damn time), and what the rules of the court are (he doesn't know nearly enough). His senpais are patient. Shoyo is not.

Shoyo hasn't jumped for this team. He's almost afraid to, since he's so bad at everything…what if his jumps are only impressive to people who don't play volleyball? What if his jumps are average?

So he's got nothing to convince the senpais that he belongs in the starting line up, let alone the coach.

Tadashi works right next to Shoyo every day, teaching him the finer points for some things and learning alongside him for others. Tadashi is cheerful and doesn't have the same drive that Shoyo does to succeed. He isn't frustrated by staying on the sidelines.

Tadashi cheers Tsukishima on whenever the tall boy scores a point or blocks a spike. His earnestness makes Shoyo turn around and watch Tsukishima’s reaction, to glare at Tsukishima if he stomps on Tadashi’s good will if nothing else.

He slowly notices that every time Tsukishima completes a play or earns praise, a blankness spreads over his face. It looks to Shoyo, sometimes, like there is a thought chewing on Tsukishima’s insides that's slowly hollowing him out.

But of course, Shoyo doesn't care. Who knows, maybe he'll end up taking Tsukishima’s spot if there's nothing left of the taller boy?

*

Their first practice game makes Shoyo miserable. He can’t play volleyball at all. He’s stuck on the sidelines, cheering, and his entire body is vibrating.

Meanwhile, that shitty Tsukishima kid steps onto the court with the nerve to look bored. _Bored._ It makes Shoyo’s teeth gnash together in complete frustration.

“Don’t you kind of hate him sometimes?” Shoyo asks Tadashi after the game, as they clean up.

“Who?”

“Tsukishima.”

Tadashi, who had been running with his mop right next to Shoyo, stops and stands ramrod straight. Shoyo skids to a stop and looks back at Tadashi, and runs over to him when it looks like Tadashi isn’t going to be moving until he says his piece.

“Tsukki had a bad experience with volleyball this last year,” Tadashi says. “It really messed him up. So, I’m happy that he gets to play in games. Maybe it’ll make him like volleyball again.”

“If he doesn’t like volleyball why is he on the team?” asks Shoyo.

“Uh, well…” Tadashi rubs the back of his neck. “I think…I think he still likes volleyball? But I think he doesn’t like it at the same time. There’s a lot going on with him about it. I haven’t asked for all the details, because I know most of it, and Tsukki doesn’t like to talk about his feelings.”

“If he’s your best friend, shouldn’t he talk to you, though?”

Tadashi’s laugh makes Shoyo feel uncomfortable. “Hahaha, yeah, I guess.”

One of the third years barks at them to keep moving from the supply closet, and they drop the conversation in favor of clean up.

*

Shoyo doesn't care what Tsukishima Kei thinks of volleyball. He’s got way too much to do.

Every night after practice, Shoyo bikes home, a long ride up and down a mountain that makes his thighs burn going to and from school. He comes home, collapses, eats dinner, and then practices the techniques his senpais taught him. He practices passing, though there's no one to pass to, and some overhand motions as well.

“You have to get used to the ball,” Yoshioka had said that second day in the gym.

That's all Shoyo can do.

He sleeps with his volleyball at night, tucked under his arms or at the tips of his fingers. If Shoyo learns every single curve and crevasse of this one ball, he should be on good terms with the others.

Morning practice isn't mandatory for the team, but Shoyo goes every morning without fail. He nods off in class sometimes because of it too. Tadashi doesn't show up for morning practice, probably because Tsukishima doesn't either. Shoyo sticks to Yoshioka in the mornings and tries to soak up everything he can.

Yoshioka is a third year. He isn't a starting player, but he's considered a regular. A pinch server, he tells Shoyo. Yoshioka is a wing spiker.

Shoyo wants to be a wing spiker too.

He wants to smack the ball down to the floor, to fly up to the net and receive a toss just for him, to have those satisfactions.

According to Yoshioka, a wing spiker needs to be good at defense. Receives are important, he has to perfect those, or Shoyo will never be a regular player.

Yoshioka will never hit a serve at Shoyo in the mornings. He says they're too much for him to handle right now, but he'll pass and pass and pass until Shoyo can't feel anything but the stinging in his forearms. Shoyo watches Yoshioka practicing his serves in after school practice and, while he wants to try receiving those strong hits, he probably can't.

*

The day Shoyo finds out that volleyball isn't an option for boys in the upcoming school-wide sports festival he becomes profoundly depressed.

Almost all the girls in his class sign up for tennis or volleyball, with the few exceptions going to the boys-and-girls relay race. Shoyo hates that the girls playing volleyball talk about it like it's an easy sport that they don't have to trouble themselves over, because it's the core of his existence as of one year ago. But he won't say anything.

He signs up for basketball—even as he's teased for being so short—because signing up for soccer feels like admitting defeat and the relay race just doesn't have the same feeling of victory to it.

Of course, Shoyo surprises everyone when he makes his first basket with a jump that clears the top of nearly everyone’s heads during their informal class practice during lunch one day.

*

The first match of the sports festival has Shoyo’s class facing off with a second year class. To Shoyo’s surprise, one of his senpai from the volleyball club is on the basketball team they’re up against. Itagaki, a middle blocker. The other starting middle blocker, with Tsukishima.

Itagaki waves at Shoyo, but he doesn't call out a greeting. That’s probably because he doesn't remember Shoyo’s name, having spent all of two minutes in the same sphere during morning and after school practices. Well, it's a large club. Shoyo refuses to feel bitter about that.

The second year class starts the game confident, and they get their first two-pointer quickly, but once Shoyo’s class gets their hands on the ball, once Shoyo gets the pass and jumps for the basket, and the ball swooshes cleanly into the net—he can't do that regularly so it feels so, _so_ good to make it here—it's like he's finally done something that sticks.

Shoyo is so caught up in the joy of doing and winning that it isn't until they're in the second half of the game that he sees how Itagaki is looking at him.

It appears as if a thousand wheels are turning in Itagaki’s head, and Shoyo is so unsettled by that intense gaze that he switches out with one of his classmates only a few minutes later. He tells them it's from exhaustion, but…he's just nervous.

Shoyo’s class wins that game. They lose the next one against a third year class.

*

The clubs don't have practice after school that day, but the next morning Itagaki waves Shoyo over to the net.

“Konoe-san,” Itagaki says to their setter, “toss a spike for this shorty.”

Konoe, who is a tall third year with bushy eyebrows and a permanent scowl, eyes Shoyo doubtfully. He says nothing, only looks at Itagaki and shrugs.

“I'm serious,” Itagaki insists. “A real easy one. Give him some room for a run up.”

Shoyo stares up at the both of them. “Huh?” he says.

Yoshioka jogs over. “What's this about, Ita-chan?”

“This kid”—Itagaki jerks his thumb at Shoyo—“has been holding out on us.”

Everyone in the gym is staring now. No one is practicing. There's no squeak of shoes on the wood floor, no thumps of passing or thuds of spiking. No calls. Just observation.

Shoyo goes red under the attention.

Konoe gives another little shrug, this one saying, _why not_ , and throws the volleyball up high in the air over his head. As it comes back down he lifts his hands up to set it.

Itagaki looks at Shoyo, then, and jerks his head to the back line.

Shoyo gets it.

He darts back at his full speed, turns, and dashes for the next just as Konoe sets the ball for him.

It doesn't quite hit the center of his palm, but it's a good toss, and Shoyo smacks it down on the other side of the net. He lands and looks at Itagaki again. Itagaki isn't looking at him, though. He's meeting the eyes of their team’s captain, and then Konoe’s.

“Holy crap,” Shoyo hears someone say.

“O…Oy,” their captain, Yasuhiro, says. He sounds like someone's just punched him in the throat. “What the heck was that jump?”

*

Despite the team’s awe, nothing changes in the line up. Shoyo still isn't a starting member or a regular. Yoshioka insists that he needs to get the basics down first before absolutely anything, and Yasuhiro agrees without even a hint of argument.

Shoyo is disappointed by that.

But there's a different feel to his practices now, like they're grooming him instead of teaching him. Shoyo feels the eyes of his senpais on him whenever he pulls off a good receive, and it's just like the sports festival with Itagaki watching him. Calculating.

Actually, Itagaki is the one watching him the most, even more than the captain or Yoshioka.

“Why is Itagaki-senpai staring at you?” Tadashi asks during one afternoon practice.

Shoyo shrugs. He doesn't know how to explain what happened that morning practice where Itagaki made him jump to Tadashi, because any way he tries to word it, it sounds like Shoyo is bragging about himself or the senpais’ attention. He wants to stand on the court and under the bright lights, but he doesn't want Tadashi to think Shoyo believes he's better, somehow.

“He’s looking at you like…” Tadashi trails off, rubbing the back of his neck uncomfortably.

“Like how?”

Tadashi twists his mouth. “Like you're something to eat.”

Shoyo doesn't know what that means, but he can't find a way to argue either.

*

The InterMiddle Summer Tournament sneaks up on them with very little warning for Shoyo. When he looks back on it, he sort of realizes that the regulars have been practicing with a little more determination in their eyes—with Tsukishima being the apathetic exception—but the tournament isn't something that Shoyo can hope to be a part of so he hadn't been paying attention.

He takes the bus with Tadashi, following the bus with the regulars, and they sit next to each other in silence. For Tadashi it's a contented silence, and for Shoyo, a tense one.

Shoyo wants to play. He wants to play volleyball on a court. He wants to feel the sting of the ball on his palms and his arms, the burn of his thighs as he jumps over and over again, the exhilaration of winning.

He wants to play like the Small Giant, defying the odds.

Instead, obviously, he sits in the stands and cheers, doing the call-and-response they'd practiced with enthusiasm if not perfection. Tadashi seems delighted to be cheering on his best friend, giving an extra loud “Tsukki!” whenever the tall blocks a play or scores a point.

Shoyo can't get into it for Tsukishima, but he cheers for Itagaki. It almost seems like Itagaki hears him, although that's impossible in this echoing gym full of clamorous voices.

They win the first game, and the second, although both teams make them work for it. The team goes home in high spirits and ready to take on the next day of the tournament.

Their third game that next morning is a straight-set slaughter.

It’s the first time Shoyo sees the ace of Shiratorizawa’s middle school division in action. Ushijima Wakatoshi. A left handed player. Unstoppable.

They couldn't beat him even a little.

*

The third year retire after the tournament.

Their school isn't a championship school, though they have enough strength to place in the top 16 most tournaments. The third years have their high school entrance exams to focus on as well. Shoyo is sad to see them go, Yoshioka in particular. He's been in their care these last few months.

Itagaki becomes the next team captain.

*

The next five months become a blur of training for Shoyo. Itagaki insists he practices receives again and again and again until Shoyo is a puddle of sweat on the floor and his breaths feel like knives in his chest.

Shoyo enlists Tadashi’s help for this whenever he can, forcing and pleading and daring Tadashi to hit him passes and then serves and, when Tadashi is feeling really fresh, spikes.

(The unexpected benefit is that Tadashi’s serves have a marked improvement, to the surprise and delight of the second years.)

Slowly, so slow at first that Shoyo doesn't even notice until Itagaki says something, his form improves. He misses fewer and fewer balls and he's able to cleanly return the serve to the attack line, though not to the setter’s position with any consistency.

Biking to and from school becomes easier too. Shoyo realizes one morning that his thighs aren't rubbery, or anything more than slightly tired, when he locks up on the bike rack.

Practice matches are still off the table.

Shoyo only hits a set ball once in a blue moon. Their new starting setter, Fujioka, is far too busy integrating himself into the lineup to cater to Shoyo’s thirst for spikes. He isn't even offered a place as a regular. He knows Itagaki is watching and waiting for Shoyo to prove himself worthy of a jersey but Shoyo can only continue as he is. Receives, receives, receives, as if he's being groomed as a libero.

Not that there's anything wrong with liberos. Just the opposite. Shoyo thinks they're extremely cool. He's in awe of that second year libero from Chidoriyama Middle when they play during the spring InterMiddle preliminaries, who effortlessly receives spike and serve again and again. Shoyo wants that skill, but he doesn't want to _be_ that player. He wants to have his spikes go down the middle or on the sides. He wants to do a broad hit that slices across the court.

Shoyo wants, and wants, and practices, and wants. He becomes a creature with singular focus.

*

Their school isn't a championship school. It never has been.

It's not a pushover, defeated-in-the-first-round school either, but solidly average. Best out of sixteen is their likely end, Best of eight if they achieve a miracle. Still, it's better than what Shoyo almost had.

A lucky thing, it had been, that Shoyo learned the middle school he almost set his heart on attending had no volleyball team. Shoyo happened to find a list of school activities offered there, and had actually read it. Girls’ volleyball, yes. Not a boys’ team.

Shoyo doesn't want to think about what would have happened had he not read that list, as he wouldn't have read it on most days.

Still, even knowing that his school is considered average, Shoyo wants to win. He wants to become a champion, and go to Karasuno High with dignity, to stand on the same court as the Small Giant and _belong_.

*

The first time Shoyo says “Karasuno High School” aloud, like he's reciting a verse from scripture, it's in the store room with Tadashi and several other of the first years as they finish clean up from afternoon practice.

“I want to go to Aoba Jousai someday,” Miura says. He's in Shoyo’s math class. “They're incredible.”

“I don't know if I want to go to a powerhouse school,” Terada replies doubtfully. “I mean, it's cool to brag about it and all, but unless you're really good you don't get to play at all. I mean, we don't even get to play now.”

Shoyo smiles widely. “Guess you'll just have to become really good, huh.”

Terada blinks, and grins back. “Guess so.”

“Where do you want to go, Shoyo?” Miura asks him. “If you know yet, that is.”

“Karasuno High,” Shoyo breathes.

“Huh?”

“It's where the Small Giant went,” Shoyo tells the baffled Miura. “They went to Nationals a couple years ago. I'm gonna be on that kind of team.”

“As a libero?” Terada cracks, and the conversation quickly devolves into the taller Miura and Sayuki teasing Shoyo, provoking him to jump up to meet their lowered palms. The height is so easy to reach that no one notices how little effort it takes Shoyo to spring up.

After the chatter has died down and they head out for the day, Tadashi lingers to speak to Shoyo even as Tsukishima clicks his tongue loudly in the long shadow of the gym, impatient as ever.

“Karasuno?” Tadashi asks, voice low, expression complicated.

“Yeah,” says Shoyo. “I’m definitely going. You should too!”

He likes Tadashi a lot—Shoyo makes friends easily, but Tadashi is one of those rare friendships that makes Shoyo want to seek him out instead of the other way around. It would be nice to have something like that, he thinks, in his distant high school future.

“I'm probably already going there,” Tadashi starts to say, but his eyes dance back to Tsukishima when the tall boy calls for him impatiently. “I'll see you tomorrow, Shoyo!”

Shoyo waves with his entire arm and upper body.

“Sorry, Tsukki!” he hears Tadashi say.

“What was that about?” Tsukishima asks in his usual dry disinterest.

“N-nothing!”

*

The first time Itagaki brings Shoyo out to practice spikes, his fellow first years mutter to each other in dubious surprise. Shoyo can't blame them—none of them saw his jump that day. A couple of second years weren't there for morning practice, either, but Fujioka was.

He nods grimly as Shoyo approaches the attack line in single file behind two second-year wing spikers.

“How high can you go?” he asks Shoyo in his usual soft-spoken way.

Shoyo doesn't know, he's not tested his jump height in a while. Only the regulars do things like block and spike height jump tests.

He gives Fujioka a little shrug, repentant and helpless. Fujioka just shrugs back.

“We’ll take it nice and easy,” he says. “Give you a good run up.”

“Do your best, Shoyo!” Terada calls, and it sounds like he’s just barely suppressing a snicker. Out the corner of his eye, Shoyo can see Tsukishima sidling next to Tadashi, a sneer on his face. Tadashi is the only one of the first years who looks blindly supportive.

Shoyo is suddenly nervous. He looks to the calm Fujioka, and then to Itagaki, who nods at him. There’s a strange light in Itagaki’s eyes that has Shoyo’s blood thrumming in wary anticipation, although he can’t say exactly why.

The ball is passed to Fujioka. He sets it, high, and Shoyo _flies_.

Fujioka is a good setter.

Shoyo hits the ball dead on in the center of his palm, he sees the other side of the next, and the ball slams down in a resounding _smack_ that makes him feel alive.

His hand stings. He clenches it tight and shouts, “Yes!”

“Again,” Itagaki says.

Shoyo lines up again. And he spikes it again and again throughout practice that afternoon, ignoring his fellow, incredulous first years, ignoring everything but the ball and the setter and Itagaki’s “Again” until his legs are wobbly from jumping and running and he feels sweat pouring down his back.

This is what he’s been craving for so long. This is what drew him to volleyball that day, watching the Small Giant jump and jump again.

For one primal moment, his small body feels powerful enough to move mountains.

*

After practice the first years crowd him.

“Jeez, Shoyo, why didn’t you say anything?” Sayuki asks.

“That was some serious jumping power,” Miura chimes in.

Shoyo likes being the center of attention. He knows, in some background part of him, that standing in the spotlight is his weak point, and it’s been so long since he was praised for something that he’s lost some of his ability to withstand it.

He’s tired, and sweaty, and probably smells awful, but he throws himself into the mix with delight.

It isn’t until they’ve finished cleaning up and are headed out of the gym that Shoyo sees Tsukishima and Tadashi, lingering a little ways away. Shoyo hadn’t fully realized that Tadashi wasn’t in the cluster of first years and now that he does, he can’t hold back his disappointment.

Shoyo takes a step toward Tadashi, to say something, but he takes a good look at Tsukishima’s face.

Tsukishima is pale.

He has a complicated expression that Shoyo can pick out parts of—disbelief, irritation, and a sneer that Tsukishima wears whenever he sees Shoyo—but can’t put together as a whole. His hands are clenched at his sides, and he seems to be laughing, maybe, though nothing in his face looks amused.

He’s looking at the place where the cluster of first years had been after practice let out.

*

Spiking practice isn’t every day, however. Shoyo gets to line up with the other non-regulars and practice his spikes twice a week, three times if he’s lucky and Itagaki is in a good mood. He _still_ can’t join in practice matches, he _still_ sits on the sidelines, and Shoyo almost wonders what the point is.

Before he realizes it, practices are cut short in the afternoons and the time to study for finals is upon them.

*

Shoyo isn’t good at school.

He hasn’t been able to sit still in a classroom since he first stepped into one. He doesn’t learn well confined to a seat and being lectured at as part of a group. Sometimes, if he’s getting taught one on one in a proper conversation, Shoyo can grasp what a teacher is trying to get across--but more often than not he feels stuck and stir-crazy when he’s in class.

Normally Shoyo doesn’t mind too much if he fails a test, but the day Itagaki announces that grades affect club participation he damn near has a heart attack.

“Help me,” he begs Tadashi after their shortened practice, gripping Tadashi’s arm like it’s the only thing keeping him from drowning.

Tadashi laughs awkwardly. “Um,” he says, “I can try, but I only get average marks. You should ask Tsukki.”

Shoyo freezes.

“That…” he starts to say, but Tadashi is already waving.

“Oy, Tsukki!” he calls out over the courtyard. “Tsukki, come here for a minute!”

 _That doesn’t sound like a good idea_ , Shoyo finishes inside his head, miserable, as Tsukishima approaches and looms over him.

*

And yes, it’s just as bad as Shoyo thought it would be.

Tsukishima doesn’t want to help him at first. Shoyo wouldn’t care, but Tsukishima saying, “Why the hell should I,” in that condescending tone pisses him off because how dare he talk to Tadashi that way?

They end up at Tadashi’s house on a Friday, and when Tadashi’s mother greets Shoyo with familiarity, Tsukishima goes tense and a frown carves itself permanently into his forehead.

(Shoyo can’t help that Tadashi’s family knows him, since he’s stayed over on nights where the mountain pass was completely snowed over and not safe to bike on. Besides, does Tsukishima want Tadashi to be completely friendless except for himself?)

That frown haunts Shoyo during their entire, torturous study period.

Tsukishima quizzes Shoyo on what he knows in each subject, growing more caustic and irritable each time Shoyo reveals how little he’s absorbed in class. Tadashi is nice enough about it, often stepping in to head off Tsukishima’s harsher comments, but Shoyo still feels beaten down and stupid.

He hates this.

And he hates how Tsukishima teaches him, as if this should all be innate knowledge and Shoyo is a failure for not knowing it automatically.

“Why can’t you just get it?” he snaps after one particularly challenging math problem.

Every time Shoyo squirms in his seat, restlessness getting the better of him, Tsukishima taunts and teases him, calling him a child, a toddler, spoiled and stupid…

It’s too much. Especially when Shoyo considers that he’ll be doing this again, after school and on the weekends until finals are over.

Tsukishima is supposed to spend the night, so Shoyo begins packing up his things when the sky starts getting dark so he can escape.

“Stay,” Tadashi says, his voice soft and his eyes wide. Shoyo hears something else in his voice but he doesn’t know what it is Tadashi means to say.

“I don’t think he wants me here,” Shoyo replies, keeping his voice quiet, and looks over Tadashi’s shoulder to where Tsukishima is stretching his arms.

“ _I_ want you here,” says Tadashi.

Shoyo finds it hard to refuse his friend. Incredibly kind people are hard to disappoint.

They all sleep in Tadashi’s room, Shoyo next to Tsukishima in their own futons that Tadashi’s mother pulled out earlier.

Tsukishima is closer to the bed where Tadashi is sleeping, and Shoyo close to the door. He offered to be close to the door, but Shoyo got the feeling that with this, he didn’t have a choice.

It’s one of the most tense nights of Shoyo’s life.

*

Shoyo spends an entire month in academic misery. He wants to practice volleyball. He wants to jump and spike at balls, he wants to get better at his receives so he’s allowed in practice matches, he wants to be moving and active.

He’s stuck, sitting still, trapped at a desk or a table with a pencil in hand.

“I hate this,” he confesses to Tadashi during one afternoon practice when it’s cut short yet again.

“I guess,” Tadashi agrees, “but you don’t want to repeat the year, right?”

Shoyo grumbles wordlessly and picks up a stray volleyball. When he rights himself, Itagaki is standing in front of him with his arms crossed.

“Captain!” Shoyo splutters, almost dropping his armful of balls.

“How’s studying going, Hinata?” Itagaki asks.

Shoyo hesitates, not wanting to complain, but...well, Itagaki looks like he _cares_ , and Shoyo is tired of being talked down to all the time.

He tells Itagaki how _hard_ it is to stay in one spot instead of moving around, how he’s never been good at those sorts of things, how his brain feels like it’s going to dribble out his ears.

He says all this as he continues cleaning, tries to say it in the most dismissive way possible. Itagaki helps him clean up and silently, patiently, _listens_.

“It’s only another week,” Itagaki says, once Shoyo has spilled his guts.

“I know.”

“If you get a passing grade on all your finals, I’ll give you a really nice treat,” Itagaki tells him. His smile is something that makes Shoyo wary, but he doesn’t feel like backing away. “If you get over 80 percent on more than two tests, I’ll make it extra good.”

“Yeah?”

“Mhm. It’s a promise.”

He has Shoyo shake on it, and Shoyo feels himself getting fired up.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all for the enthusiastic response! I promise I am also working on Tsukishima's Playlist.
> 
> So, like, this chapter has some sticky stuff that, while not being based on any of my experiences, is something that happens. And I say this now because this story is entirely in Hinata's POV: we will be coming back to this particular sticky subject at a later point with a more collective and comprehensive lens. Which is to say, no one in this fic is a villain.

The first year of Shoyo’s middle school life ends in pure relief. Thanks to Tsukishima’s tutoring—rude, unbearable, and torturous though it may be—Shoyo passes all his end-of-year exams by the skin of his teeth.

He does not get over 80 percent on even one of his tests.

It would have been more of a disappointment if Shoyo had thought he’d actually pull it off. Just passing is more than he expected. His parents are definitely happy about his exam results. Still, Shoyo is curious about whatever it was Itagaki had in mind.

Two days into the break before the new school year begins, Shoyo gets a text from Itagaki.

_Meet me tomorrow at the station closest to school. 9am._

Shoyo’s never taken the train station so he has to ask his dad for directions.

The conversation is weird at first, mostly because Shoyo forgets to specify that he’s meeting a senpai from club and his dad keeps making odd comments about “treating them right” and remembering to “act appropriately.” But at last, his dad draws him a rough map (Shoyo’s always been better with maps than written directions) and sends him off to bed.

*

Shoyo’s never seen Itagaki in casual clothes before, just gym sweats and sometimes in his school blazer. He looks kind of nice, and Shoyo regrets wearing a basic jacket over his t-shirt and jeans. Maybe they’re going somewhere important?

But Itagaki just smiles and says it’s fine when Shoyo asks.

They get on the train headed into Sendai, which is a long train ride, but Itagaki brought his portable game console and they take turns playing. It’s pretty fun.

When they get off the train, Itagaki takes Shoyo to historical Sendai.

They spend the day looking at the old castle and running wherever Shoyo wants to go. Itagaki buys him ice cream at one point, which he says is his treat for Shoyo passing his finals, except isn’t this whole trip his treat anyway? And Shoyo doesn’t want to complain.

It’s fun, this day out.

Shoyo’s been to historical Sendai before. It was a field trip back in elementary school. Of course, school field trips were always heavily supervised and Shoyo couldn’t just run off to look at whatever he thought was cool. He had to do what the teachers said. It was boring. This isn’t.

Only when the sun starts heading toward the horizon do they go back to the train station, Itagaki’s wallet a little lighter after buying the ice cream and a good luck charm for the club room.

“We should do this again,” says Itagaki when they arrive back at the station by school, the return trip spent playing games again.

“Sure,” Shoyo says.

He wonders if this is one of the perks of a senpai-kohai relationship. Having a doting senpai is pretty nice, then. He’s pretty lucky.

*

“Sounds like a good first date,” Shoyo’s dad says at dinner.

Shoyo pauses, his chopsticks halted midway to his mouth. Natsu giggles.

“Huh?”

“Sounds like a good first date.”

“… _Huh?_ ”

Shoyo’s dad smiles. “Oh, did she not tell you it was a date?”

At this point, Shoyo stops talking. He eats the rest of his meal methodically, because eating is second nature to him, but he doesn’t taste it nor is he hungry.

Shoyo knows his dad makes up his mind far too easily and once something is decided, it’s almost impossible to change his mind. He knows this because his mother has explained it to him several times already, in long conversations. So Shoyo doesn’t try to explain that it was a senpai, a _male_ senpai, treating him for a job well done.

He doesn’t try to explain, because there’s also a pit growing in his stomach that night as Shoyo tosses and turns, trying to fall asleep, that’s poisoning the day’s events.

It wasn’t a date.

It wasn’t, because Itagaki is a guy, and Shoyo is a guy, and that’s just not what a date is, right? And…it just isn’t.

Shoyo repeats this to himself over and over but his uneasiness continues to grow.

*

Just when Shoyo thinks he can’t hate Tsukishima Kei any more than he already does, their second year of junior high begins.

Tsukishima has shot up another two centimeters in the few weeks since Shoyo has last seen him, and his voice his a little deeper than it was before. If Shoyo pays attention he can hear it breaking on certain syllables but Tsukishima speaks quietly, so it’s hard to catch.

This, for some unfathomable reason, has made Tsukishima popular.

Absolutely no one realizes that he’s not aloof and mysterious, he’s sullen and apathetic. And nasty. And so rude. Sure, he’s tall and gets good grades and can play sports, but his personality is _awful_.

Shoyo won’t run around screaming about it, but he has to grit his teeth together to keep from complaining about it to Tadashi.

Tadashi, of course, is just fine with it.

Being an eternal cheerleader for his best friend his something Tadashi never gets tired of, damn him, even though he should be sick of it by now. Shoyo can’t find a single good thing about Tsukishima that would make Tadashi so loyal.

If _that_ wasn’t enough, the club learns in the first week back to school that the basketball team is trying to poach Tsukishima because of his height.

At least there’s that, in Tsukishima’s favor. He doesn’t even consider the switch.

Even if Shoyo secretly wishes he would.

*

Miura gets promoted to regular on the team. He gets a jersey with a number and the letter “S” next to his name in the official line up.

Shoyo tries his best to be happy for his teammate, he really does. Even if Shoyo’s spent most of his time focusing on his own improvements, he knows Miura has put in a lot of work himself.

It’s just so _frustrating_.

*

Shoyo’s in the same homeroom as Sayuki this year. As it turns out, Sayuki is almost as bad at school as Shoyo, which makes commiseration all that much easier. Sayuki is an average volleyball player, not much of a power hitter but always calm on the court. His composure is nowhere to be seen in the classroom.

“I’m okay with Miura getting a jersey,” Sayuki confesses during lunch one day. “He’s earned it. But that damn four eyes doesn’t even care!”

“Yeah,” Shoyo agrees, hesitant to voice his feelings.

“He’s only got his height,” says Sayuki. “Sure, he can play smart, but it’s not like his blocks are anything to write home about.”

“It…” Shoyo clears his throat. “It doesn’t seem like he cares.”

“Exactly, exactly!” Sayuki waves his half-eaten broccoli (how he stands the stuff, Shoyo doesn’t know) in the air between them. “If a block gets past him he just kind of shrugs, you know?”

And they’re off, ranting about Tsukishima until the bell rings and Shoyo feels like a weight has been lifted from his chest.

*

After a month into the new school year, Shoyo works up the nerve to approach Itagaki.

He’s been keeping his distance ever since their trip to Sendai, even though Itagaki has clearly been trying to get him alone. Shoyo wishes he had more guts, but…

Ever since that day, he’s been afraid of Itagaki. Well, maybe _afraid_ isn’t the right word. Wary, probably, is closer. Like he’s walking around a hornet’s nest.

“Do you think I could play in a practice match?” Shoyo asks, before Itagaki can bring that day up.

“Huh?”

“Just one set,” Shoyo urges.

Itagaki scratches the back of his head.

“I don’t know, Hinata,” he says. “That’s up to the coach. I’ll ask, but…I know you can jump but if you can’t receive, then I don’t see how—”

“I’m not going to get any better if I _don’t_ play in at least one practice match,” Shoyo points out.

“…I guess,” says Itagaki, doubtful. “I’ll talk to the coach about it, okay?”

“Thanks.”

“Oh, and Hinata?”

Shoyo has already turned around to leave, but he looks over his shoulder at Itagaki, who is in the middle of sliding off his jersey jacket.

“Mm?”

“You want to go somewhere with me this weekend?”

Shoyo feels a cold puddle forming in his stomach.

“Um,” he says, and a bleating laugh forces itself out of his throat. “I’ve got a lot of homework, and…so…I don’t think so. Sorry. I can’t.”

When Shoyo turns back around to flee the scene, he notices Tsukishima and Tadashi are watching him. Tadashi looks mildly concerned and Tsukishima is frowning, but he doesn’t look angry. Hinata puts it aside and moves next to Sayuki to do his cool-down stretches.

*

This year for the sports festival, Shoyo and Sayuki sign up to do soccer together. Sayuki says it’ll be nice to score points on a team for once and Shoyo agrees, but he has another reason:

He doesn’t want to play against Itagaki in basketball.

Shoyo hates that all his decisions are based around avoiding his senpai. He is a confrontational person at heart—he doesn’t like to hide from things. But his instincts (animalistic hindbrain, more like) are screaming at him to keep back.

He misses Yoshioka. He misses having that reliable older senpai who is there to support him. He doesn’t want to walk on eggshells around his team captain.

Maybe it’s because the third years are so focused on the first years, but Shoyo feels the loss keenly every time he turns to someone to ask for help. He considers calling Yoshioka but it feels like giving up.

*

Two days before their next practice match, the coach throws Shoyo a jersey and tells him to practice with the team.

Shoyo can barely contain his excitement. Obviously he’s played informal matches within the team, but this is against another school and for the first time, he’s given something to do. It’s thrilling.

When he glances at Itagaki in front of him, he gets a thumbs up that makes Shoyo feel bad for avoiding him so much.

Then again, Shoyo ends up next to Tsukishima in the rotation.

Tsukishima is quiet on the court. He mumbles his one-touches and doesn’t call out for hits, letting Fujioka make the plays instead. He’s methodical, which makes communicating with him awkward at best.

“It sucks,” he complains to Sayuki the next day in class. “I can’t tell what he’s thinking at all.”

“At least you get to play in a practice match,” Sayuki points out.

“Only because I begged to play one set.”

“Yeah, but Itagaki-senpai pays so much attention to you already. He’s always watching you.”

That…isn’t what Shoyo wants to hear.

*

The practice match is awful.

Shoyo had a handle on receives, or so he thought, but it’s completely different when the other team is looking to spike _away_ from a receiver. And while he certainly takes the other team by surprise when he jumps, by the end of the set he keeps getting blocked.

It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter how high Shoyo jumps, how fast he is. He gets blocked.

At the end of the set Shoyo’s been allowed to play, he feels tears of frustration welling up in the back of his eyes, a hard pressure he won’t cave to.

So what if their team won the set? He, personally, was a failure.

*

Shoyo sits outside the gym by himself as the sun sets.

He should get on his bike and go home, he knows it. But all his energy is gone. He feels like a useless excuse. How on earth had he ever thought he could play volleyball with everyone else? He’s too short, too inexperienced, too pathetic.

And the worst part was that no one would say it. If someone had had the guts to tell him he’s no good, Shoyo would have felt the fire to get better. But even Tsukishima is silent, though at least, he isn’t silently pitying Shoyo like everyone else clearly is.

Tadashi, especially—he’d been so careful to tell Shoyo he did well for his first practice match ever, his eyes tight and a false smile painted over his mouth.

It’s awful. He hates this.

Someone sits down next to him.

“You okay?” Itagaki asks.

Shoyo keeps his arms wrapped around his knees and stares straight ahead. “Yup.”

“You’re full of it,” says Itagaki. “Like hell you’re okay. You know, you look like your dog just died.”

“I suck at volleyball.”

“No you don’t.”

“Yeah, I do. You don’t have to lie to make me feel better.”

Itagaki snorts. Out of the corner of his eye, Shoyo watches him stretch his legs out. “So you didn’t have a good first match. What were you expecting? No one has a good first match. Coach knew that would happen when he put you in.”

“I was really bad, though.”

“You’re just not used to it.” Itagaki sighs, and Shoyo finally looks over to watch him run his hand through his hair. “See, I knew this would happen. This is why I didn’t want you to play.”

Shoyo’s mouth twists. “What are you talking about?”

“I’ve been thinking over and over,” says Itagaki, “about how we could use you in a game. So has Coach. If we had your speed combined with your height and your jumps…it would definitely shock the other team. But then they get used to it. We can’t figure out a way to use you yet. So I didn’t want you to play because in the end, we can’t make proper use of you yet.”

He hadn’t realized Itagaki had been thinking all that.

“So you want me to play.”

“Yeah.”

“But not yet.”

“Yeah.”

“Because you don’t want my feelings to get hurt.”

Itagaki nods.

Shoyo looks down at his knees. There’s a scar on the left one that stands out in the dimming light. “That’s not fair.”

“Hah?”

“That’s not fair,” Shoyo repeats. “It’s like you’re treating me like a kid.”

“I’m not treating you like a kid,” says Itagaki. “It’s because you’re special. You’re special to me, Hinata.”

It’s such a bizarre statement that Shoyo jerks his head up to stare at Itagaki, and Itagaki’s face is really close now, and—

He feels a pressure on his lips and Shoyo realizes a second later that he is being kissed. That Itagaki is kissing him. That Itagaki’s lips are on his lips.

Shoyo jolts back, scrambling away at top speed. He stands up and stares down at Itagaki as he scrubs at his mouth furiously with the back of his hand.

No way. No way that just happened.

Itagaki’s cheeks are faintly pink. “What the heck?” he mutters. “That was the mood, after all.”

“Why would you do that?” Shoyo demands.

“Why _wouldn’t_ I do that,” Itagaki says. “I just told you I’ve been thinking about you over and over, Hinata. We went on a date. This was the next step!”

Shoyo shakes his head frantically. “No,” he says. “No it wasn’t!”

“I know it’s not just me,” says Itagaki. He stands up and Shoyo immediately takes another two steps back. “You pay too much attention to me for it to be anything else.”

“You’re wrong.”

“I’m not.”

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Shoyo says. “You’re a guy. I’m a guy. This doesn’t make sense.”

His mind is racing, reeling—Shoyo feels like he can’t get a handle on anything. Something in the back of his head acknowledges this as the thing he’d been so wary of for the last two months.

“I like guys,” Itagaki says. “So it does make sense. And you like guys, too.”

“I don’t, though!”

Itagaki crosses his arms. “I’m not stupid. It’s fine if you don’t want to come out to other people, but you and I are the same.”

“I don’t like guys!”

“Well, maybe you don’t like me,” says Itagaki, “but you like guys. I’m not wrong.”

Shoyo backs away and then flees. He’s unlocked his bike and is zipping off into the dusk before Itagaki can stop him.

There’s a heaviness in his chest that he can’t outrun, however.

Is _this_ why Itagaki has been paying so much attention to him? He said it was also to use him in a match but…but… No, that would mean that everything Shoyo’s done is worthless. That it wasn’t ever about him succeeding at all. That he’s just…

Shoyo feels the tears finally spilling out of his eyes. He takes his hand of the handlebar for one second to wipe his eyes, and after he dries his hand on his jacket, he wipes his mouth again.

*

With Itagaki’s surprise advance comes a new resolution:

Shoyo is not leaving Tadashi’s side during practice ever again.

Sayuki notices this after a couple of days and folds himself into their non-regular group practice seamlessly. He doesn’t say anything, nor does Shoyo think that Sayuki has even noticed how Shoyo avoids Itagaki.

It’s easiest to pretend that nothing happened, which Shoyo does, even if he hates knowing that his first kiss has been stolen.

And he can’t stop thinking about it.

His stomach rolls every time he remembers the texture of it, remembers that Itagaki’s lips were wet. He gets a split lip a couple days after because he’s rubbed his mouth raw.

At least Itagaki is giving Shoyo his space, though their eyes occasionally meet and Itagaki is intense as ever.

Sticking around Tadashi, however, means sticking around Tsukishima.

During actual practice, there’s something of a reprieve. But in the club room and the down times before and after are tense.

Tsukishima clearly doesn’t want Shoyo there.

He’s rude and terse and ignores Shoyo half the time, if he’s not making some calculating insult about Shoyo’s height or lack of skill. Tadashi never, _ever_ sticks up for Shoyo—not that Shoyo asks him to—and that makes actual conversation difficult.

Shoyo hates Tsukishima as much as ever, but at least Tsukishima won’t try to kiss him.

*

The InterMiddle Summer Tournament comes upon them before Shoyo realizes it.

He’s spent the last month dragging Sayuki and Tadashi into three-on-three games with some of the first years, so focused on getting the feel of a receive during a match into his system, that he doesn’t notice the restlessness in all the regulars.

He’s especially not paying attention to the third years until their coach hands out the match-up list a week before the tournament begins.

But Shoyo does pay attention when Yukimura, a first year middle blocker who was made a regular almost immediately, is put into the starting player rotation.

He looks to Tadashi first.

Tadashi’s expression is like someone just summoned up his worst nightmare. His eyes are wholly fixed in Tsukishima’s direction, but when Shoyo looks at Tsukishima his face is blank.

Yukimura is shorter than Tsukishima by at least five centimeters, but as practice goes on (and Shoyo sneaks glances at the regulars’ game) it becomes clear that Yukimura has more ambition than Tsukishima. His blocks are shorter, but they have more impact when they connect. And Yukimura has been showing up to morning practice, while Tsukishima still doesn’t.

Shoyo feels…empty.

He can’t bring himself to feel pity for Tsukishima, but any satisfaction he thought he might feel is absent.

It’s not his problem.

It doesn’t matter to Shoyo if Tsukishima gets a setback when Shoyo hasn’t even had a step forward.

It doesn’t.

*

Shoyo situates himself firmly between Tadashi and Sayuki in gymnasium stands during the tournament. He doesn’t cheer for any one person in particular on their team during the first or second game.

There’s another game that catches his eye, though.

Chidoriyama Middle is playing Kitagawa Daiichi Junior High.

Shoyo didn’t really understand until this moment that there are different _styles_ to volleyball. Chidoriyama focuses on an offensive brutality that, while being limited by middle school-level talent and lack of height, slams past blocks. Those magic receives by their libero are incredible as well.

On the other hand, Kitagawa Daiichi is flexible. Shoyo remembers they went head-to-head with Shiratorizawa last year in the finals and lost by a slim margin. They connect the ball—all the times Shoyo has heard the word “connect” stand out in his memory—and execute complicated plays.

It’s an incredibly fierce match up and Shoyo can’t tear his eyes away. He finds himself rooting for both teams, though a little bit more for Chidoriyama.

They lose two-to-one, Kitagawa Daiichi storming the court in victory, and it’s a shame. Shoyo wants to see Chidoriyama play more.

Not that Shoyo would have seen them play anyway. The second match for his team is a straight set loss.

*

When they return to the gym at the end of the day, it’s farewell for the third years. Itagaki takes his last bow as captain by addressing every first and second year.

As it turns out, Miura is the new captain. Shoyo congratulates him with the rest of the second years and stretches his smile wide across his face even though it feels like a lie.

Itagaki stops in front of Shoyo, and it’s all he can do not to take a step back.

“You’ll get to play a real match,” Itagaki says warmly. “I just know it. Don’t give up.”

“Thanks,” Shoyo says, hesitant. He’s reassured by Tadashi’s presence to his left.

Itagaki cracks a grin. “Hey, maybe you and I will end up at the same school again and we can play on the same team. Niiyama, okay? Come be my teammate.”

“Too bad for you, captain,” Sayuki cuts in on Shoyo’s right.

“Yeah,” Miura adds, laughing. “Hinata’s got his eye on Karasuno High.”

“ _HA!_ ”

Everyone looks over at Tsukishima, who is on Tadashi’s left. He’s covered his mouth after that outburst but his eyes are slightly crazed. It’s the most emotion Shoyo has ever seen from Tsukishima, other than disdain.

“What’s up, Tsukishima?” Miura asks.

Tsukishima shakes his head. He doesn’t say anything and Tadashi jumps in, saying:

“Tsukki’s older brother went to Karasuno, ha, ha. We’ve been to their gym before. That’s what it is!”

Shoyo watches Tadashi rub the back of his neck and knows, in his gut, that Tadashi isn’t telling the whole story. There’s just no way that the immoveable Tsukishima made that sort of outburst for such a simple reason. But Shoyo doesn’t speak up, and neither does anyone else.

Itagaki turns back to Shoyo. “It’s a shame,” he says, and he sounds really regretful. “I would like to play a real game with you. But I guess we’ll play against each other instead. And I’ll still see you around school for the rest of the year, huh?”

“Um… I guess.”

Shoyo resolves to stay away from the third year floor.

It’s not…it’s not like he _dislikes_ Itagaki. He liked their senpai-kohai relationship before everything was ruined. Shoyo just doesn’t trust him anymore. And that sucks.

*

The club is given a week off between the summer tournament and their next practice.

Shoyo finds himself restless and irritable during that long week, practicing at home and taking an extra long bike ride from school.

With nothing to do, he’s forced to _think_.

Itagaki said he looked forward to playing against Shoyo, but Shoyo doesn’t know if he’ll ever be a regular. All he does is practice on the sidelines. He’s grown seven centimeters since entering middle school but he’s still so, so _short_ compared to the other second years. Even some of the first years tower over him.

More and more, Shoyo feels like there is no place for him. He feels strangled and pushed down, even as he struggles against that feeling with everything he has.

Attending a school with a large volleyball club might have been a mistake.

*

When practice resumes on Monday there is a glaring absence.

“Where’s Tsukishima?” Miura asks Tadashi during stretches.

“Um,” says Tadashi, scratching at his cheek. His eyes dart around the gym. “He...he should be here. He said he’d catch up…”

Tsukishima doesn’t make an appearance during practice at all, though, and the pained expression Tadashi does his best to hide feels like a personal affront to Shoyo.

“He needs to show up for morning practices, too,” Miura tells Tadashi.

(Shoyo happens to overhear—Miura holds Tadashi back as everyone heads to the club room to change.)

“I’ve…I’ve tried suggesting it to him—”

“That’s not your job,” says Miura. “Just, you know, let him know that I said so, okay?”

“Yeah.”

Tadashi’s head hangs low as he exits the gym, and no matter how much Shoyo tries to cheer him up there’s no change.

Tsukishima doesn’t show up at practice the next day, either.

On Wednesday, Shoyo tells Sayuki he’s got a stomach ache and is going home straight after school. Since Shoyo has never skipped club practice a day in his life, Sayuki buys it. He even says Shoyo looks a little flushed, which is probably not wrong, because he is _furious_.

*

Just as Shoyo suspects, Tsukishima is sneaking out in the crowd of students at the shoe lockers. He’s too tall to blend in, though, and Shoyo shadows him easily.

It isn’t until Tsukishima turns onto a solitary trail away from town that cuts through a hilly park—a shortcut to his house, probably—that he even notices he’s being followed. When he looks over his shoulder, he pauses.

“What are you doing, shrimp?” he sneers.

Shoyo crosses his arms and frowns. “I want to talk to you.”

“Why aren’t you at your precious club practice?”

“That’s _my_ question.”

Tsukishima turns around completely and shoots a glare that could peel paint in Shoyo’s direction. Shoyo feels the “flight” instinct kicking in but he holds his ground.

“Why should I go to practice?” Tsukishima asks.

“Because you’re a regular on the team!”

“What’s your point?”

Shoyo doesn’t get this guy. He stalks over to Tsukishima and plants his feet in the dirt trail. “What’s your point, huh?” he snarls up at the four-eyed beanpole. “Skipping practice when you’re a regular? Do that and you’ll get bumped, you know?”

“I’m already bumped from starting player,” says Tsukishima. “What’s the big deal? There are plenty other middle blockers to pick from. Hey, why don’t you try out?”

It’s weird.

The words themselves are casual and flippant, and Tsukishima is speaking in his usual disinterested drawl, but every inflection is loaded with emotion that Shoyo can’t figure out. Tsukishima’s eyes are crazed, too—the same as when he made that outburst in the gym.

“You’re such a jerk,” Shoyo says. “You’re tall, and you’re good at volleyball—if you’d just _try_ —”

“If I just tried, then what?” Tsukishima cuts him off. “Huh? Our team isn’t going to win the prefecture tournament. Even if we did somehow, we’d get slaughtered at Nationals. We lose whether or not I try.”

“That’s crap!”

“The hell it is!”

Tsukishima whirls on his heel and starts stomping away.

Shoyo isn’t having any of it. He jumps and tackles Tsukishima and they both go tumbling down off the trail and into the small valley off to the side.

“Get _off me!_ ” Tsukishima snarls, and Shoyo finds himself flat on his back.

He stares for a few seconds as Tsukishima gets to his feet and storms toward a tree on a small hill up ahead. Then Shoyo realizes that just past that hill, the trail continues, and he launches himself upright.

“Oh, no you don’t!” says Shoyo, and he starts running after Tsukishima.

“What the—”

Tsukishima glances over his shoulder and makes a supremely irritated face before dashing off. But Shoyo’s faster. He’s always been faster than Tsukishima during sprints.

“Tsukishimaaaaaaaa!”

“Leave me alone!”

“I won’t!”

WIth that, Shoyo matches Tsukishima’s pace near the crest of the small hill. Tsukishima twists his upper body and throws out his right arm—probably to smack Shoyo away like a mosquito—but Shoyo reaches up and grips Tsukishima’s collar in both hands. Both of them are caught off balance and they fall to the ground.

They tumble over one another once, twice, and end up near the tree roots with Shoyo pinning Tsukishima down, his knees on either side of Tsukishima’s hips.

Shoyo quickly sits on Tsukishima’s thighs and pins his hands down. Tsukishima struggles but he can’t stand up.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Tsukishima spits.

“Hey, that’s _my_ question!” Shoyo shouts into his face. It’s enough to make Tsukishima flinch and become still. “What do you mean, we lose whether or not you try? That’s got nothing to do with anything!”

“Shut up!” says Tsukishima. He’s stopped struggling, but his glare is so, so hateful. “You wouldn’t know. You don’t know what it is to try and fail anyway.”

“The hell I don’t!”

“There’s no point,” he snaps, “whether or not I play. We’ll lose anyway in the end.”

“That’s crap, and you know it,” Shoyo says. “You’re just scared of losing. Keep talking like that and another first year will come in and take your place!”

“So let him! I might as well quit the team anyway!”

Shoyo sees red.

He grips Tsukishima’s wrists tighter, lifts them up, and slams them back onto the grassy ground.

“Ouch!”

“You can’t quit!”

“Why not?” Tsukishima yells up at him. “Huh?”

“You’ll hurt Tadashi!”

Tsukishima continues to glare, but he keeps his mouth shut because he knows—he _has_ to know—that Shoyo is right. He squirms a little under Shoyo and then gives up.

Shoyo takes a deep breath. “Winning or losing isn’t the _point_ ,” he says. “I mean—winning is awesome. I want to win a lot of games! I want to play in a lot of games, even though I probably never will. I’m too small. But that’s not the _point_.”

They stare each other down for almost a minute before Tsukishima caves.

“Okay, so what _is_ the point?”

Shoyo’s mouth twists. “Hey, Tsukishima,” he asks, “do you even like volleyball?”

Tsukishima blinks. “I…don’t know. Probably not.”

“Then why are you playing?”

He mutters something.

Shoyo leans in closer, their noses almost touching. “What?”

“My brother played.”

It’s the first time Shoyo has ever thought Tsukishima is cute. Or, not cute exactly, but normal. A regular middle school student. He’s a little surprised, charmed even.

“So you want to be like your brother?”

“He always…” Tsukishima turns his head away. “He looked like he was having fun. I don’t…I don’t know.”

Shoyo doesn’t know what exactly has made this caustic person so willing to share his emotions, but he forces himself not to tease and ruin it. This is about Tadashi, after all. Shoyo refuses to let that sad expression return to Tadashi’s face.

“That’s the point,” he says. “Volleyball is fun, you know? It’s really fun and it feels great when you get a good play in. That time Itagaki-senpai called me up to spike? That felt _great_ , you know? That’s why everyone practices so much. Because it’s fun to do the best you can, right?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“So why not find out?” Shoyo frowns a little as a thought occurs to him. “You know, being good at volleyball is a lot cooler than being bad at it.”

Tsukishima’s entire body seems to relax at that. Shoyo’s chest fills with something warm and, somehow, potentially, terrifying. But he’s happy. God, he’s really happy right now.

“Alright,” Tsukishima says. “Alright.”

“So you’ll come to practice again?”

“Sure.”

“Morning practice, too?”

Tsukishima grimaces, but he looks Shoyo dead in the eye and says, again:

“Sure.”

Shoyo grins.

“Hey, get off me.”

“Huh?”

“Get off me.”

Shoyo blinks and glances down. He realizes that he’s pressed up almost entirely against Tsukishima, their torsos a hair’s breath apart and his shirt front actually draped on Tsukishima’s uniform.

His face becomes hot. “Oh!”

As Shoyo scrambles backward, falling on his butt, Tsukishima sits up and his legs split open. It’s a jumble of limbs and in the confusion Shoyo smacks his tailbone against a tree root and Tsukishima’s hand presses into his crotch.

Shoyo stares wide-eyed at Tsukishima, who turns bright red and yanks his hand away. He falls back.

“Sorry,” Tsukishima says, now braced on his elbow. He won’t look Shoyo in the eye.

“It’s…it’s fine,” Shoyo tells him. His eyes are watering from the pain in his rear end. “Crap, that hurt.”

“Sorry.”

“No, not you, the tree.”

“Huh?”

Shoyo rolls over. “Tree root.”

Tsukishima sags. “Oh.”

They sit there in awkward silence for a long stretch of time. A breeze comes up and ruffles the leaves of the tree above, rustles their hair, and Shoyo’s mouth is surprisingly dry when he swallows next.

“Sorry I tackled you like that,” he offers after a while.

“Yeah. Don’t do that again.”

“Only if you don’t like an idiot again.”

Tsukishima gapes. “Idiot? _Me?_ Look who’s talking!”

They begin to bicker, but the flavor is different. There is something light and relieved in each barbed word—relief, because Shoyo finally feels like he can throw around playful insults and not get burned by Tsukishima’s scorching replies.

Relief, because he thinks that maybe, someday, they might actually become friends.


	3. Chapter 3

Shoyo’s first crush was in the fourth grade.

There was a girl in his class named Aya with her pretty hair in curled pigtails. Her parents dressed her up in dresses with frills and smothered her in accessories. Every morning was a new display. By lunchtime, Aya discarded most everything and ran to play soccer with Shoyo and the boys.

It amazed Shoyo that this doll-like girl was so ready to wrestle in the mud. She liked finding bugs, playing sports, and roaming the outdoors. When she was asked about the difference in her appearance, Aya would reply:

“I like dressing up, too, but it’s boring to do that all the time.”

For Shoyo, that mature versatility in someone his age was fascinating. He always watched Aya throughout the day when he thought he could get away with it, and soon it was instinctual to search her out. Like she was a magnetic force.

His heart squeezed when he saw her. His palms sweated and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth when she spoke to him. When they played soccer together, his heart nearly burst out of his chest if they came near to each other on the field.

That was a crush. Shoyo figured it out early on.

Shoyo had other crushes after Aya—maybe none so powerful, but they were all crushes. And they were all girls. Pictures of pretty girls capture his attention.

So Shoyo knows he likes girls. He knows Itagaki is wrong.

They’re not the same at all.

*

The day after Shoyo wrestled Tsukishima to the ground and made him promise to come to practice, Tsukishima shows up to morning practice a half-hour late and looking dead with exhaustion.

“Wow,” says Miura. “Are you okay?”

Tsukishima wordlessly sits down and puts his shoes on. His movements are sluggish and Shoyo almost feels bad for the guy as he ties his shoelaces.

Tadashi giggles behind his hand. “Tsukki isn’t a morning person.”

“I’m not used to getting up this early,” Tsukishima says at almost the exact same time. He sounds like the words are coming out through a funnel. He glares at Tadashi with half-open eyes.

“Good morning, Tsukishima-senpai,” says Yukimura.

Shoyo tenses up.

Tsukishima shoots Yukimura, his recent usurper, a glare that could peel paint—if he wasn’t so adorably sleepy. Yukimura doesn’t so much as blink.

Tsukishima’s place as a starting member is re-established, making himself and Yukimura the two middle blockers. Miura gives Tsukishima a warning about showing up for practice regularly, but Shoyo breathes a sigh of relief when Tsukishima just nods and bows his head.

“The heck got into that guy,” Sayuki mutters.

Shoyo doesn’t answer. He can’t take the credit for it—even if he wanted to, Shoyo suspects that their promise had everything to do with Tadashi for Tsukishima and nothing with Shoyo himself.

“I’m gonna take his spot,” Sayuki adds a bit later. “If he doesn’t show up again, I’m taking his spot.”

“Good luck,” Shoyo says.

He knows that it won’t happen.

*

Becoming friends with Tsukishima, as it turns out, is unreasonably difficult. Shoyo soon gives up hope that Tsukishima will ever become friendly with him, or even pleasant. That “someday” in which a friendship might occur morphs into a “probably never.”

Instead, what they become is much more like satelight friends, orbiting Tadashi and occasionally coming close before drifting apart again.

There’s a subtle difference in how Tsukishima treats him, though. Shoyo notices it a couple of weeks after their tussle under the tree.

Tsukishima’s insults have a different tone. Instead of outright scathing, there’s an…exasperation. Like Tsukishima is throwing up his hands, internally, and saying “well, what can I do.” Shoyo doesn’t realize the change at first, but then Tadashi says something silly during a lunch break and Tsukishima uses that same tone with him.

Shoyo is still the butt of Tsukishima’s taunts and teases a large portion of the time, but sometimes Tsukishima will let him in on the joke if it’s directed toward someone else. Shoyo understands why Tadashi laughs along—it’s intoxicating, this inclusion into a mostly exclusive person.

It’s easy to accept this type of dynamic with Tsukishima, because Shoyo understands quickly how difficult it can be to get close to this prickly character.

*

Trying to explain to Sayuki why Shoyo is suddenly on, if not good, then acceptable terms, with the guy they spent a lot of time talking badly about behind his back is a challenge.

“Seriously, what happened?” Sayuki demands, when Shoyo returns from eating lunch in Tsukishima and Tadashi.

Shoyo shrugs.

“Stop shrugging every time I ask you that!”

“Nothing happened,” Shoyo says. A lie. “I just…I got used to him, I guess.” Another lie.

For some reason, Shoyo doesn’t want to tell anyone—not even Tadashi, or rather, especially Tadashi—about the confrontation under the tree. It feels intensely private and not only because Tsukishima had been straightforward for once.

He can’t explain it. Not to anyone, if they happened to ask, but mostly to himself.

How is he supposed to put into words the way he looked Tsukishima in the eye, a first considering their height difference, and received honesty from him? Shoyo can’t even sort out his feelings about it, let alone form sentences.

And Shoyo’s never been good at forming sentences about his emotions in the first place.

Sayuki is clearly irritated at losing an ally, but the truth is that Shoyo isn’t the type of person to hold a grudge once an issue has been resolved. He is, fundamentally, a people person. He likes all kinds of people. He likes outgoing people, like himself, or introverts who don’t talk unless prompted. He hates when people are mean, but that’s normal. If it gets cleared up Shoyo is more than happy to let things go.

Still, he can’t tell Sayuki he’s fine with Tsukishima now. That would be one too many lies.

*

The summer of Shoyo’s second year in junior high is a scorching one.

Sitting in the classroom is torture for even the most stoic students. It makes no difference if the window is open or closed, there isn’t a breeze at all and the air is heavy and static. Sweat dampens the backs and underarms of every person’s shirt, student and teacher alike.

Shoyo is miserable.

At least the gym is air conditioned, there is that, but trying to study for his end-of-term exams in this heat and under Tsukishima’s irritated supervision is unbearable.

There are times that Shoyo will give up, go outside, only to trudge back in because he is so parched from the dry air.

Things do not improve once exams are over and school lets out for a solid month-and-a-half. Shoyo wakes up sticky every morning, discovering he’s kicked the covers off during the night and it’s _still_ not enough to cool him down. He starts biking to school early for practice so that he’s not under the burning sun. But that only does so much, since the temperature never seems to drop below 22.

Practice no longer includes outdoor runs unless it’s below 35 degrees, since their coach doesn’t want to call anyone’s parents and explain their son died of heat exhaustion.

Everyone is sweaty and miserable inside the gym or out of it. The listlessness induced by this heat reaches even the most volleyball-crazy, Shoyo included.

*

The third week of summer vacation, the temperature reaches a terrifying 41 degrees and practice is cancelled for three days straight after the coach takes one look at his team’s flushed and lethargic faces that morning. Apparently, nothing good will come of playing volleyball, even in an air-conditioned gym. Practice will resume once the heat wave breaks.

Shoyo can’t even be upset about that.

As he prepares himself—mentally and physically—to make the hellish bike trip back over the mountain, Shoyo finds Tadashi at his side.

It is in that moment Shoyo realizes that Tadashi has been sprouting up like a goddamn sunflower. He towers over Shoyo.

“Stay at my place,” Tadashi says.

“I don’t have any extra clothes.”

“Just wear mine.”

“You’re too tall.”

Tadashi blinks a few times. “Huh?”

Shoyo twists his mouth and shrugs. “I mean, sure. Will your mom mind?”

“She said to invite you over this morning,” says Tadashi. He’s frowning slightly, looking a little confused. Maybe it’s hard to notice one’s growth spurt when one’s best friend is an abnormal giant. “I think she called your mom, too. It’s dangerous for you to bike home in this heat.”

It’s impossible to argue with him, so Shoyo unlocks his bike and wheels it along next to him as he and Tadashi head home.

Tsukishima joins them just as they clear the school grounds.

“I’m coming over,” he announces.

“Shoyo’s staying.”

“I don’t care.”

“Hey,” says Shoyo, a little annoyed. “I’m right here.”

Tsukishima smirks at him. “Oh, sorry. We must not have seen you all the way down there.”

It’s too much energy in this heat to get angry with Tsukishima, so Shoyo resorts to sulking in silence, half-listening to Tsukishima and Tadashi’s conversation about a new single they’ve listened to.

Halfway to Tadashi’s house, Tsukishima makes them stop at a convenience store. Shoyo waits outside with his bike while the other two go in.

He kind of hates this.

Shoyo likes Tadashi a lot. He’s a great guy, probably the nicest person Shoyo has ever met. But the way Tadashi ignores everyone else in favor of his “Tsukki” is a stinging reminder that Shoyo doesn’t have a best friend. He kind of wants one.

A popsicle enters Shoyo’s field of vision, right in front of his face.

“Here.”

Shoyo takes it. The popsicle is still in its wrapper but Shoyo can see, through the half-opaque plastic, that it’s orange colored. He takes it and looks up, straight up, at Tsukishima.

“Thanks,” he says. He can’t think of anything else to say.

Tsukishima comes around to stand next to Shoyo and opens his own popsicle wrapper. Bright red.

“Is that cherry or strawberry?”

“Strawberry.” Tsukishima sticks it in his mouth and grimaces. “Nope. Cherry.”

“Wanna switch?”

“You don’t even know what flavor yours is.”

“Orange.”

“You’re just guessing.”

Shoyo peels open the wrapper. The inside is sticky with sugary artificial flavoring. He expertly twists the wrapper around the wooden stick to keep the popsicle from dripping on his hand while he eats it and holds it up to Tsukishima.

“See? Orange.”

“Lucky guess.”

“Wanna switch?”

“…Yeah. Pass it over.”

They carefully exchange the popsicles, but even so, the pass-off is a little messy. Shoyo licks his sticky fingers before giving his new cherry-flavored popsicle a lick.

As he does so, Shoyo realizes something. His chest contracts painfully as it hits him, much like he imagines it would feel like to get hit by an oncoming train.

Tsukishima had this popsicle in his mouth.

The thing that is in Shoyo’s mouth now was just in Tsukishima’s mouth. Tsukishima’s tongue touched it. It was melting inside of Tsukishima’s mouth, melting because of the heat—

Shoyo gasps and almost chokes on the melting popsicle’s liquid.

_What the heck?_

“W-where’s Tadashi?” Shoyo blurts out.

“He’s getting you a toothbrush for you,” Tsukishima says. “His mom texted him a list of things to pick up. It’s not just for you. I guess your dad came by and dropped off some clothes or something.”

“Oh.”

Shoyo reaches into his pocket with his clean hand and fishes out his phone. He has two messages.

_You’ll be staying at the Yamaguchi house until this heat wave breaks. Dad will bring your things on his way to work. You left before I tell you to take some extra clothes with you. When you get home you need to clean up your room, it’s a mess._

_Sorry, Shoyo, I forgot to bring your toothbrush and toothpaste! Can you grab some on your way home?_

Not for the first time, Shoyo thinks his parents are two very different people.

“Huh,” he says.

“You’re bad at checking your phone, aren’t you,” says Tsukishima.

“No, I just don’t check it fifty times a day.”

“Uh-huh.”

Tadashi exits the store just then, and Shoyo immediately thanks him over and over, offering to give him the meager amount in his wallet to make up for whatever Tadashi spent.

It’s easy to get wrapped up in a conversation with Tadashi after this and Shoyo spends the rest of the walk talking as loudly and excitedly as he can manage.

The chatter distracts him from the rapidly melting popsicle Shoyo bites in between words.

*

The next day, Shoyo wakes up covered in a sheen of sweat and has to kick off his borrowed futon. Tadashi is already out of his bed and when Shoyo leaves the room, he hears the shower running.

“This sucks,” Tadashi says when he leaves the bathroom.

“Yeah.”

“Want to go to the pool today?”

“Yes, please.”

Shoyo’s mother is a godsend.

When Shoyo returns from his lukewarm shower he finds his swimming trunks in the duffel bag his mother packed for him, brightly-colored beach towel included.

Tadashi’s neighborhood is well off. It has a large public pool only ten minutes’ walk from Tadashi’s house. In any other weather it would have been a short, pleasant walk. With this heat the pair of them are melting by the time they reach the pool.

Shoyo and Tadashi get out of the water only to eat or drink. The pool isn’t too crowded, thankfully, but there are a good number of teenagers.

A group of high school girls show up after two in the afternoon.

Tadashi flushes under his freckles and has trouble looking at them. All but one are in bikini swimsuits, their hair pulled up in ponytails or clipped back to keep off their neck.

One girl is exceptionally pretty. Her legs are long and she keeps smiling and laughing with her friends while her short ponytail swishes back and forth with every move she makes.

Shoyo’s mouth goes dry when he looks at her.

“Pretty,” he says aloud.

“Be quiet,” Tadashi hisses.

“Huh?” Shoyo looks at him. “They can’t hear me. And I’m not saying anything bad.”

“Still!”

Tadashi is so shy, sometimes. Shoyo has never been embarrassed by himself—he doesn’t think he does anything that shameful, though he knows he can be stupid and silly—so he doesn’t understand the way Tadashi flushes from his ears to his shoulders.

“What’s the problem?” he asks Tadashi.

“Doesn’t looking at them make you think about… _that?_ ”

Shoyo blinks. “What?”

“You know… _that._ ”

“What’s that?”

Tadashi’s mouth opens a little before he swallows. “Uh, you know, when you…see a pretty girl and…you know…” he flushes even darker and points his finger down at the water.

“Huh?”

“When you’re alone and you…” Tadashi clears his throat. Shoyo thinks steam might come pouring out his ears at any second. “ _You touch yourself_ ,” Tadashi finishes in an embarrassed whimper.

It takes Shoyo a long moment to process what his friend is saying. When he realizes, Shoyo’s heart lurches in his chest and he feels his face heating up too.

“Oh!” Shoyo licks his lips. “Uh…I don’t really know.”

Truth be told, Shoyo has never done that. He’s felt funny sometimes, down there, but his mom is always home and Natsu has no qualms about opening Shoyo’s door whenever she feels like it. Shoyo doesn’t have a lock on his room, so he’s never risked it. And besides, he’s always too tired after his long, gruelling practice (both team and solitary) that he’s never thought to take the time.

“Huh? You don’t know?” Tadashi seems more shocked than flustered now.

“No…is it bad?”

“Well…” Tadashi dips under the water for a few seconds and comes up, wiping his dripping hair out of his eyes. “It’s normal to see a pretty girl and want to do _that_. You’re the first person I’ve met who doesn’t. Or, you and Tsukki.”

Shoyo is unsettled by this aside. He doesn’t know why.

“It doesn’t matter, does it?” he says. “They’re high schoolers. Hey, wanna get a popsicle?”

They end up splitting a grape popsicle, the type that has two stems and breaks in half. Afterwards, they stick out their dyed purple tongues at each other and laugh.

*

Tadashi’s mother sends them to the pool again the next day. The pavement seems to shimmer with heat like it’s water. Shoyo is much less enthusiastic about the pool after spending his entire day there yesterday, but it’s better than dying from the heat.

An hour after arriving, Tadashi takes out his phone and begins texting.

He doesn’t tell Shoyo who he’s talking to, but after half an hour of Shoyo half-heartedly splashing around in the pool and Tadashi sitting under an umbrella with cold water, Tadashi leaps to his feet and waves at someone by the gate door.

Shoyo looks in that direction, too.

His stomach lurches.

Tsukishima is wearing swim trunks and a white t-shirt, a simple striped beach towel slung over his right shoulder. When he opens the gate Shoyo sees his swim trunks are a basic navy blue. He’s carrying a small sports bag in his left hand.

Shoyo hefts himself out of the pool and sits on the edge, his feet dangling in the water. It’s hot enough that he doesn’t get a chill from the water on his skin in the air.

“Tsukki, you made it!” Tadashi says, clearly happy.

“The air-con broke last night,” Tsukishima says. He glances at Shoyo before continuing. “They’re fixing it this afternoon.”

It almost seems like Tsukishima is apologizing. For what, Shoyo doesn’t know.

“Are you hungry?” asks Tadashi.

“No.”

“Thirsty?”

“No.”

“Do you want to get in the pool?”

“I have to put on sunscreen first.”

Tsukishima drops his bag down by the two chairs Tadashi has saved for himself and Shoyo. He lays the towel down onto the pavement and steps under the protection of the umbrella before shedding his shirt.

Shoyo’s mouth goes dry.

*

The next morning, while the sky is still grey in pre-dawn light, and the birds are only just beginning to sing, Shoyo wakes up and finds the messy result of his dreams under the futon cover.

*

When the heat wave breaks later that day, Shoyo returns home.

Practice resumes, though continues to get cut in the middle of the day thanks to the heat. Shoyo works as hard as their coach and his small body will allow. If he was a volleyball freak before, he’s a certified monster now.

He doesn’t look at the starting member practice sessions.

Shoyo practices jumping a lot more. The burn in his thighs is distracting and satisfying. He practices jumping sideways, jumping diagonal, learning how to throw himself around mid-air to suit his whims.

At first he jumps into the net or too far away to hit the ball set for him by the first year setter. It’s clumsy and stupid-looking, and he gets a lot of laughs at his expense. But Shoyo has never learned how to quit so he keeps at it daily, sometimes practicing in his yard.

When the new term starts Shoyo has to split his focus between the upcoming class trip and his practice. He doesn’t remember the second years from last year mentioning it, but they must have, because it’s gruelling. All that with studying and Shoyo falls into bed at the end of each day, dead tired.

He prefers it that way. He wants to have dreamless sleep, or at least dreams that are forgettable.

Shoyo is so focused on school and volleyball that it isn’t until he is biking home one day that he realizes the days are shortening again.

*

“I’m thinking of making you a regular.”

Shoyo stares at Miura, his water bottle in his mouth but not yet tilted back. He’ll probably choke on the water if he tries to drink it now.

“Huh?”

“If coach agrees,” Miura adds quickly. “I can’t say if he will, but…I’ve seen you practice your jumps. They’re turning into something pretty good. We still have a couple of slots open from the third years before we head to the InterMiddle, so—”

“Are you serious?” Shoyo says, leaping to his feet. His heart is soaring.

“I’m not making any promises!” Miura says. He holds his hands out in front of him, a shield against Shoyo’s excitement. “So if it doesn’t happen please don’t get upset. I’m just mentioning it because I want to know if you’re interested.”

“Of course I’m interested!”

Miura sighs. “Seriously, don’t get your hopes up.”

“I’m gonna be a wing spiker!”

“Um…”

Shoyo tilts his head and frowns at Miura. “What’s the problem?”

“You know, being a regular doesn’t mean you’ll get to play in any games, even if you do make the cut. Besides, you’re…” Miura looks uncomfortable. “You’re under 160 centimeters, you know?”

“Of course I know that!”

How could Shoyo not remember his own height every minute of every day? He is constantly reminded by his teammates just by standing near them.

All of the second years have begun sprouting up. It’s not just Tadashi, who continues to loom higher and higher. Sayuki has become thin and gangly as his body grows at too fast a rate. Terada is expanding both up and out, shoulders broadening in physical maturity.

And the first year starter, Yukimura, continues to chase after Tsukishima in height.

So of course Shoyo knows he’s under 160.

“I can jump, though,” Shoyo says. “Really, I can jump a lot and not get tired.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen that,” says Miura. “Just…don’t get discouraged if it doesn’t happen. Becoming a regular I mean. I shouldn’t have even brought it up.”

Shoyo shakes his head. “You saying this means I’m doing something right! So I’m glad you did!”

*

Shoyo does not make the cut for regular. Instead, Terada gets a jersey and WS next to his name. One of the first years gets the flashy Libero jersey as well.

He tries not to be upset about it.

What he said to Miura was true. Even mentioning the possibility was an affirmation that Shoyo is on the right path, but he wants to play so badly that sometimes he feels like he is vibrating out of his skin.

For Shoyo, there is volleyball, and only volleyball, and everything else is secondary. He can’t put into words how deeply in love he is with the sport, only that he is.

Maybe that’s weird.

Maybe it’s like what Tadashi said: it’s normal to react when boys his age see a pretty girl instead of thinking about volleyball first.

But then Shoyo thinks about that for two seconds and flushes red.

He doesn’t want to remember.

He hasn’t stayed at Tadashi’s house since, insisting that he can make the bike ride home even on scorching days. Once the weather turns cold enough for snow he won’t be able to make it home no matter how determined he may be, so he won’t have a choice then.

Volleyball is the one time Shoyo loses all thoughts of his dream, and it’s his escape from the bitter disappointment of yet again remaining a reserve club member.

So Shoyo plays, and practices, and trains his body. He cheers for their team during the InterMiddle tournament, whoops with glee as they make it into the top eight, and groans when the game to reach the semifinals is a clean set loss.

He goes on his class trip to Kyoto, sticks to Sayuki to keep from getting lost, and returns home without incident.

He carries on for months, stretching himself to the limit of his ability both physically and mentally.

And of course, there is always a limit to human endurance.

*

Shoyo can’t get out of bed one late November morning.

He felt sick the night before, a little nauseous and sweaty, but when his mother takes his temperature that morning while insisting he go to school, they discover he’s burning up at almost 39 degrees.

His mother isn’t an anxious person, so they don’t go to the hospital.

Instead, she calls the school and says he’ll be out for the rest of the week before stuffing him into bed with a surplus of blankets and an ice pack for his forehead. She fills up ten water bottles for him to drink and makes porridge for him to eat when he can.

Shoyo is unsteady on his feet whenever he gets up to go to the bathroom. He’s so dizzy and feverish that he forgets long stretches of time.

At one point he checks his phone—he thinks this is in the middle of the night because his room is pitch black—and sees he’s gotten a text from Tadashi and had at some point texted back. He doesn’t remember doing it, but it reads coherent.

It takes Shoyo three days to begin recovering.

None of his friends or classmates visit, which isn’t surprising. Shoyo can’t think of anyone who would be willing or able to take the mountain pass to his house. One of his teachers comes by while Shoyo is sleeping and drops off some printed notes, but she has a car.

Instead, he is bombarded with texts. Shoyo hadn’t realized how many people he’d given his email address to until his phone is buzzing constantly to check up on him. Both his teammates and classmates are concerned. It feels nice to know he’s liked.

And then Shoyo gets a text from a number he wasn’t expecting.

 _Hear you’re out sick. Hope you get better soon! Let me know if you need anything_.

Shoyo hasn’t spoken to Itagaki since the end of the summer tournament. With a tightness in his chest and shaking hands, Shoyo types back:

_Thanks._

His phone buzzes only a minute later.

_Heard you almost made the cut for regular. Shame it didn’t happen. I would have pushed for it, if it were me. You doing okay?_

Shoyo sighs and rolls onto his back on the bed.

It feels like Itagaki is acting as though nothing has changed between them, as though Itagaki didn’t wreck everything with that one kiss.

As though he didn’t throw Shoyo’s entire world into chaos.

_I’m okay. I’m working hard._

_Must be why you got so sick! Take care of yourself._

_Yep. I’m going to take a nap now._

_Okay, sleep well!_

Shoyo puts his phone down and groans into his pillow.

“Mom,” he calls.

No answer.

He gets up and pads over to the door. “Mom?” he calls again as he slides his door open. There’s still no response so Shoyo steps into the hallway and heads into the kitchen.

His mother has left a note for him, saying she’s gone to the store and if he wakes up before she gets back to have some of the porridge of the stove. Shoyo holds the note for a minute, trying to process everything going through him because…because…

Because he’s alone in the house…and Itagaki reminds him of what Shoyo is desperately trying to forget…and he’s just flushed and lightheaded enough to think about it.

Shoyo darts back to his room and slams the door shut. He feels a wave of dizziness overwhelm him for a moment. When it passes, he takes his desk chair and puts it in front of his door. An ineffectual blockade, but it makes him feel better.

He gets onto his bed and breathes deeply, trying to calm himself.

It doesn’t work.

He keeps thinking about it, and thinking, and _thinking_ , and now he feels really strange…just like that night at Tadashi’s house…

The fever must be getting to him. It has to be the reason Shoyo snuggles under his comforter and slowly—reluctantly—reaches his hand into his pants.

This is the feeling Shoyo hasn’t let himself think about.

He makes a grunting sound, bursting out of him without warning, and Shoyo blushes. He doesn’t stop, though, only bites his lip.

It’s not enough, though, it’s only an echo of that time.

Shoyo closes his eyes and tries to conjure up something to excite him more. Other boys use magazines and videos to get themselves going, right? He’s heard as much in class, now that Tadashi has prompted him to listen. But Shoyo has neither of those.

He thinks of models he’s seen pictures of, long hair and beautiful bodies, but while he definitely reacts to them in some way it’s too impersonal.

His female classmates are off-limits. Shoyo wants to make eye-contact with them when he returns to school, so he can’t…

A hand from his memory appears. In Shoyo’s imagination, the hand reaches down and pushes his own clumsy fingers aside before taking over with precise, neat movements.

Shoyo tries to think of something else. He even forces the image of Machida Hana, the student council representative from his homeroom class, into the forefront of his mind—but she wavers and disappears like a heat mirage, and _that hand_ is still there.

When it’s over and Shoyo is cleaning himself up, he can’t stop blushing.

He knows who that hand belongs to.

That hand has already touched him down there in real life, accident or no.

Shoyo hadn’t known, hadn’t realized that he’s memorized every detail of Tsukishima Kei’s hands.

*

Shoyo’s first crush was in the fourth grade.

He liked a girl named Aya, who had pretty hair and pretty dresses, and who played in the mud and picked up bugs. He had liked her so much he didn’t know what to do with himself. His heart squeezed when he saw her. His palms sweated and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth when she spoke to him.

It was a crush, and Shoyo has had his share of crushes on other girls.

Shoyo knows he likes girls.

He’s not like Itagaki.

And yet, Shoyo is coming to recognize that he’s not _totally_ different from Itagaki, because he has a crush on a boy.

He knows what a crush is. He can’t keep pretending otherwise.

Tsukishima Kei is tall, and quiet, and Shoyo likes his hands. His humor is dry and lashes out, but it feels so good to be on the inside of his jokes. He’s occasionally generous and each small act of kindness is all the more touching because of how rare they are.

Tsukishima does everything well. He likes music and cares about volleyball, even if he doesn’t like it the way Shoyo does. His bared torso gave Shoyo his first wet dream.

Tsukishima is not nice. He’s prickly and defensive and distant. His tongue is sharp and poisoned and Shoyo can’t stop thinking of how it must taste. He hasn’t been able to stop thinking about it for months, even though he’s tried so hard to drive those thoughts out of his head.

Shoyo likes girls.

But…maybe he likes boys, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um. So. Did my best to make this stay in a T rating but if you think I should change it please let me know. I did my best to be as vague and clinical as possible...I know this is a trope of the slash fic genre but it's...something along the lines of my own experience, haha. Also this should go without saying: please do not sexualize the smol middle school children.


	4. Chapter 4

Hinata Shoyo isn’t the type of person to run away from a challenge.

He hates backing down and admitting defeat. It’s why he’s worked so hard with volleyball even though his body isn’t the right size for the game. By nature he is competitive and hates losing.

After he calms down and sleeps on it, Shoyo recognizes that his feelings for Tsukishima Kei are just another challenge he has to face.

This isn’t the strongest crush Shoyo has ever had, after all. It happens to be the first one after puberty hit, but he definitely liked Aya more than he currently likes Tsukishima. He can act normally around Tsukishima if he tries.

And he will try like his life depends on it.

The challenge is to be normal.

Shoyo won’t give so much as a hint that his feelings are anything other than that of teammate or friend. He won’t prompt or push Tsukishima into something else. He won’t suggest or take advantage of any situation. He definitely, absolutely, without exception, will not kiss Tsukishima.

He won’t even allow himself to continue that thought, “…unless Tsukishima kisses me first,” because that is a dangerous line of thought. That is wishful thinking.

Shoyo returns to school the next Monday refreshed and determined. No way a crush is going to get the better of him.

*

The first hurdle is high.

End-of-term exams are rapidly approaching, and Shoyo missed an entire week of class due to overexertion. He gets a scolding from the coach and Miura both for putting himself in that situation. He’s behind in his classes, scrambling to catch up, and his only recourse is Tsukishima.

Then again, Shoyo thinks that the hurdle might be a blessing in disguise because he has somehow forgotten how _mean_ Tsukishima can be when he’s tutoring. Irritable and quick to mock, Tsukishima is clearly a reluctant teacher.

“You have him help you _all_ the time?” Shoyo asks Tadashi as they walk over to his house, Shoyo’s bike between them. Tsukishima lags behind with his headphones on.

“Well, he offered back in elementary…” Tadashi laughs nervously. “He gets a little more irritated when it’s you, though.”

“Because I’m stupid?”

Tadashi only laughs. It’s not reassuring.

Shoyo thinks that might be the turning point, the moment his crush turns into something normal. But Tsukishima ruins that hope not an hour later.

“See,” he says, when Shoyo solves a complicated algebra problem, “I knew you could do it.”

And then he smiles at Shoyo, gentle and kind and Shoyo just thinks:

_Oh, no._

It’s a struggle to keep his face from flushing and stretching into something awful. Shoyo bites his lip and focuses on the study guide in front of him as though it has the secrets of the universe.

*

Shoyo also learns, much to his dismay, that he has this reflexive urge to look at Tsukishima. He does it way too many times.

It’s been able to pass as innocent so far solely because of Tsukishima’s spot as a starting member. No one would fault Shoyo, desperate to play a real match, for his longing glances to the court. Outside of club practice it’s a lot harder to excuse.

 _Don’t do it, don’t do it,_ Shoyo tells himself firmly, the need to look around the lunch room for Tsukishima like an itch in the back of his skull.

_He’s not here. Don’t do it._

And he’s discovered the source of his uneasiness around Tadashi when Tsukishima is with them. Shoyo is envious. Rationally, he knows that Tadashi is only interested in girls and there’s nothing besides friendship there, but convincing his hindbrain is a constant exercise Shoyo could do without.

Tsukishima barely tolerates Shoyo, so of course he gets along better with Tadashi, his best friend. Of course that’s how it is.

All this and he has to keep everything locked up.

It’s much easier having a crush on a girl. Shoyo hopes his next crush isn’t another guy. One same-sex attraction is mentally taxing enough.

*

Shoyo spends Christmas with his family. They don’t have any official tradition, but his father’s work has a lot of trade with the U.K. and typically takes the week of Christmas off.

When Shoyo was younger, he remembers several years where his father was gone for six months at a time. Those years were lonely. Ever since Natsu was born his father’s overseas trips have shortened to weeks instead—another good thing about his little sister.

The morning after Christmas, Shoyo gets two text messages.

_Going to the shrine New Year’s Eve with Tsukki, want to come with?_

And:

_Hinata, are you doing anything New Year’s Eve? If not, want to go out?_

Shoyo wakes up to this.

He groans and rolls over, burying his face in his pillow and wanting to pretend the world doesn’t exist. Or at least, the people around him don’t exist.

He’s been getting texts from Itagaki ever since the week he was out sick.

Mostly, they’re innocuous, “how are you” and “how’s practice” messages. Shoyo usually responds since that is the respectful thing to do for his senpai, but he keeps his replies brief. He doesn’t want Itagaki to get the wrong idea.

Turns out, there’s nothing he can do to keep that from happening.

Shoyo has a ready-made excuse to say no, but…well, he already knows Tsukishima won’t like Shoyo barging in on New Year’s Eve. He can picture that irritated glare perfectly.

“Jeez,” he says aloud, and gets up. He leaves his phone in his room.

*

In the end, Natsu comes to Shoyo’s rescue. She kicks up a fuss about being old enough to go to the shrine at midnight (which Shoyo finds funny, because she can’t stay awake past nine on a good night) and in the end Shoyo volunteers to take her.

Itagaki takes the rejection well, which is a relief. Tadashi, on the other hand…

Shoyo’s phone rings ten minutes after he sends the text.

“Which shrine are you going to?” Tadashi demands before Shoyo can even open his mouth to answer.

“The one by my house,” he answers, after waiting a second to see if Tadashi is going to keep talking or not. “If I need to take Natsu back before midnight, I have to be close by.”

“Can I stay over, then?”

Shoyo blinks. “Huh?”

“You’ve stayed over so many times but I’ve never been to your house,” says Tadashi. “Will your parents mind? Can you ask? I’ll ask my mom.”

“Um…” Shoyo bites his lip. “What about Tsukishima?”

“Tsukki? Is it fine if he comes over, too, then?”

 _Will he want to?_ Shoyo wants to ask, but he loses his nerve.

It’s one thing to know that Tsukishima views Shoyo as a mildly irritating interloper at best, and another thing to have it confirmed out loud.

“That’s…if my mom says okay…”

“Great! Let me know!”

Tadashi hangs up without a “goodbye” and Shoyo stares at his phone for a good minute. Isn’t he supposed to be the impulsive, pushy one in this friendship?

*

Shoyo spends the week leading up to New Year’s Eve with a ball of stress churning in his gut. His mother agreed to the sleepover—even offering to pick up the two boys in her car—and so Shoyo’s been put to work cleaning first his room and then the house.

It’s too cold outside for Shoyo to go on runs or practice volleyball, which means his restless energy has nowhere to go. He plays with Natsu whenever she demands it but Natsu prefers playing with dolls and stuffed animals and it’s not exactly a work out.

(He doesn’t mind playing with dolls when it’s with her, that’s not the problem.)

Shoyo is laying out three futons in the living room when his mom returns home with Tadashi and Tsukishima in tow.

“I’m home!” she calls, and Shoyo hears his dad and Natsu respond.

He grips the edge of the futon he’s laying out and takes a deep breath before sitting upright and replying as well.

Natsu toddles into the living room and her face lights up. “Sleepover!” she says, and Shoyo snorts.

“For me and my friends,” he explains.

“Me too,” says Natsu. Her mouth pulls into a pout.

Shoyo shrugs. “Okay. Want to share with me?”

“Yeah!”

“Wah, Hinata, your house really is in the woods! We saw a stag in the driveway!”

Shoyo turns his head to smile at Tadashi. “Yep, told you so!”

Tadashi has a duffel bag in hand and is smiling down at Shoyo and Natsu. His cheeks are pink from the cold outside and he looks ready for the weather tonight.

Tsukishima stands a little further behind him, looking this way and that around the living room. He seems purely studious instead of judgmental but Shoyo can’t help but internally cringe. He doesn’t know what Tsukishima’s house looks like but he thinks Tsukishima’s family is better off than Shoyo’s own.

“Um, this is my little sister Natsu,” Shoyo says. “Natsu, introduce yourself.”

“Hi!” she says brightly. “I’m Natsu. I’m five!”

Tadashi is fighting a smile. “Nice to meet you. I’m Yamaguchi. This is Tsukishima.”

“I’m Natsu! I’m five!” she repeats to Tsukishima, who goes very still.

Shoyo narrows his eyes and examines Tsukishima. He’s unusually tense—Tsukishima is often distant, but Shoyo’s never seen him freeze up or fail to greet someone in his own morose way. It’s almost like—

Oh.

Shoyo covers his mouth but he can’t stifle his giggle all the way.

Tsukishima is bad with children. Of course he is, he doesn’t have the sort of personality that makes talking to young kids easy. It’s so cute that Shoyo can’t stand it.

“Natsu, why don’t you get your pillow,” he says.

“Okay!”

Just as he suspected, Tsukishima relaxes as soon as Natsu leaves the room. At least, relaxes as much as he ever does.

“Your little sister is cute,” Tadashi says. “She looks like you.”

“She is, isn’t she?” says Shoyo. “She’ll probably go to sleep way before midnight so I might have to leave you for a bit to take her home.”

He’s already told Tadashi this, and he’s sure his mother said the same thing on the drive over. Shoyo just wants to make sure that Tadashi and Tsukishima don’t feel abandoned.

Tsukishima might prefer him gone, though.

Shoyo musters up a smile despite the thought.

“You’re lucky you didn’t run into a boar,” he tells them.

Tadashi’s eyes go wide. “A boar?”

And Shoyo tells them the story of when he was ten and chased by a boar as he was kicking a soccer ball around, and ended up climbing a tree to get away from it.

It hadn’t been a big boar. Thinking back, it must have been barely older than a piglet. At the time he’d been in a panic and hadn’t climbed down from the tree until a couple of hours later, when his father came to get him.

By the time he finishes telling them, both Tadashi and Tsukishima are sitting on the futon next to Shoyo’s and Natsu is sitting snugly against his left side, her pillow in her lap.

“We’re having soba,” Shoyo’s mother calls from the kitchen.

“Yay!” Natsu cheers. She smiles up at Shoyo. “Nii-chan, play with me.”

He ruffles her hair. “Not tonight, okay? Because you want to stay up until midnight.”

Natsu frowns but doesn’t argue.

“I’ll play with you,” offers Tadashi.

He seems fascinated by Natsu. Tadashi is a single child and told Shoyo this last week that he’s always wanted a younger sibling. Shoyo doesn’t want to say that half the time having a little sister is a pain so he just smiles and nods as Natsu leads Tadashi to her room.

Then he realizes the problem with this development.

“Uh,” he says, feeling his face heat up. “Um…”

“Thanks for having me,” Tsukishima says quietly.

“Yeah…sorry, Tadashi didn’t, um, didn’t give me much of a choice, so…” Shoyo rubs the back of his neck nervously. “If you had another place you wanted to go, I’m sorry.”

Tsukishima shrugs. “I don’t usually go to the shrine at midnight. It doesn’t matter which one to me.”

Shoyo blinks. “Oh.”

“Mm.”

“So…so what are you doing here, then?”

“Yamaguchi wanted to do a shrine visit with you,” Tsukishima tells him blandly. “He asked me if I wanted to join. I said yes. It’s not that big of a deal.”

Shoyo works very hard to keep his face straight.

This has got to be foul play. Tsukishima made an exception for him? Well, for Tadashi, but Shoyo was part of the decision in a way…

No.

No, he can’t get worked up about this.

Except…

“But you don’t like kids, right?” says Shoyo. “Are you going to be okay with Natsu?”

“It’s just one day.” Tsukishima looks a little offended. “I can handle being around one kid for a day. And how do you know I don’t like kids?”

Shoyo snorts out a laugh before he can stop himself. “Seriously?”

“What?”

“It’s totally obvious!”

Tsukishima frowns. “I thought it wasn’t. Sorry.”

Shoyo grins. “Don’t worry about it. Kids are smart, you know? They know when people don’t like them. She’ll probably leave you alone.”

“Oh.” Tsukishima looks down and fidgets a little before saying, “She _does_ look like you. A lot. She’s cute.”

 _Not fair,_ Shoyo thinks as his heart picks up. _That’s not fair_.

Anyway he looks at it, that’s a compliment for Natsu and not himself. If he lets it go to his head, Shoyo loses. He refuses to lose. He won’t be like Itagaki.

“Um! Can you look at my homework?” Shoyo blurts out.

Tsukishima’s eyebrows raise, but he agrees easily enough. Shoyo brings the papers out from his room and they pass the time until dinner with math and English.

*

Shoyo’s dad comes back after dinner, as Shoyo is helping his mother clean up the dishes. They saved him some food and, after greeting Tsukishima and Tadashi, he takes a seat at the kitchen table.

Natsu lies down for a nap before they leave for the shrine.

Tadashi tells them she had him playing with dolls the entire time. Shoyo can’t help but laugh at the mix of bewilderment and delight in Tadashi’s voice when he explains how two of the dolls got married.

“Does she make you do that a lot?” he asks Shoyo.

“All the time.”

“Wow.”

They play videogames at a low volume, so as not to wake Natsu, and wait for the time to pass until it’s time to leave.

Shoyo does his best to ignore how tense he is, sitting next to Tsukishima on the ground, close enough that their shoulders occasionally brush up against each other.

Other than that, it’s peaceful until they’re getting bundled up to leave.

Natsu has a little trouble waking up, but she’s excited enough that she lets their mother dress her for the cold in her room.

While Shoyo’s mother is off doing that, his father comes over to the boys.

“It’s so nice to see Shoyo’s friends,” he says. “He’s so far from school, it’s been a while since anyone has stayed over.”

“Thanks for having us,” says Tadashi. Tsukishima echoes him.

“So,” says Shoyo’s dad. “The shrine, huh? Are you meeting anyone there?”

Something in his tone of voice makes Shoyo nervous.

“No, sir, just us,” Tadashi answers.

“Huh. What a shame.” Just as Shoyo’s mother scoots Natsu into the foyer, he says, “Whatever happened to that girl you went out with last spring?”

Shoyo’s heart stops as all eyes turn to him.

“That wasn’t a date,” he mutters. He knows his face is beet red. He keeps his head down because if he catches anyone’s eye, he will die.

“A girl?”

“No, mom.”

“He didn’t tell you, dear? Over spring break, he—”

“We’ve got to go,” Shoyo says loudly. He grabs Natsu by the hand and practically hauls her out the front door, leaving Tadashi and Tsukishima to scramble after him. The front door slams shut and Shoyo takes a deep, shaking breath that bites with cold.

Natsu grins up. “Date! Date!”

He puts his hand over her mouth. “You, be quiet.”

She giggles. “Is this a date, nii-san?” she asks from behind his gloved palm.

“Yep. Because you’re my special girl.”

Natsu laughs in delight and tugs away from him to run ahead, not getting too far away in part because she knows better and because the snow is deep enough that it takes some effort to plow through.

Shoyo looks back at Tadashi and Tsukishima. Tadashi’s eyes are wide and his mouth is slightly open, but Tsukishima looks largely unmoved, though his cheeks are pink from the cold.

“It wasn’t a date,” Shoyo says, though neither of them asked. “My dad…he sort of makes up his mind one way and then doesn’t listen.”

“What happened?” asks Tadashi.

The three of them fall into stride, Tadashi in the middle and Tsukishima on the right. Natsu runs back and sticks herself between Shoyo and Tadashi, putting her hands up for both of them to hold.

“Itagaki-senpai, uh, took me to Sendai as a reward for passing my exams.”

“Itagaki-senpai?”

“As a reward for _those_ grades?”

“Shut up, Tsukishima,” Shoyo says, blushing.

Tadashi hums in thought. “Itagaki-senpai always paid a lot of attention to you, huh. Do you guys go a lot of places with each other?”

Shoyo shakes his head. “Just that one time.”

“It’s kind of weird,” Tsukishima says. “Why does your dad think it was a date?”

“Um…” Shoyo looks down at Natsu, who is watching him with bright eyes. “Natsu, can you go get me a pine cone?”

“Yeah!”

“Don’t go too far okay?”

As Natsu runs off ahead of them once again with a beeline for the trees, Shoyo rubs his gloved hands over his cheeks and works up the nerve to explain what happened.

For once, his hesitance isn’t about Tsukishima.

Shoyo does not want to know what Tadashi thinks about guys who like other guys. He’s afraid to find out. If Tadashi finds that repulsive then Shoyo might break a little inside. Tsukishima is a moot point, because Shoyo would die rather than have him learn Shoyo’s feelings, but Tadashi is his friend.

He takes a deep breath, made warm by holding his hands over his mouth. His fingers feel cold inside the knit fabric when he blows hot air out.

“Actually, it was a date,” he admits softly.

“Huh?” Tadashi says.

“It was a date,” Shoyo repeats. “With Itagaki-senpai. I mean, I didn’t _know_ it was a date until afterwards but…that’s how he meant it. As a date.”

Tadashi makes a choking sound.

“Is that how _you_ meant it?” Tsukishima asks, and Shoyo blinks up at him.

He hadn’t thought Tsukishima would say anything.

“N-no,” stutters Shoyo. “I didn’t…I don’t like Itagaki-senpai like that.”

“But he likes you? _Liked_ you?” says Tadashi.

Shoyo nods and watches Natsu digging through the snow bank.

“Wow. I didn’t know Itagaki-senpai was…was like that. Wow.”

He squeezes his hands together. “Is that…okay?”

“That he made you go on a date with him?”

“No, that he’s…like that.”

Tadashi scrunches up his nose. For a second Shoyo’s stomach drops, and then Tadashi says, “I don’t care about _that._ I just can’t believe he made you go on a date with him and didn’t tell you. That’s really…I would hate it if someone did that to me.”

Shoyo suppresses a sigh of relief. He glances at Tsukishima, who merely raises his eyebrows and shrugs.

“Whatever.”

Natsu runs back with a pine cone in hand, waving it, and Shoyo puts on a good show of being both proud and excited.

*

The shrine visit goes smoothly. Natsu, to everyone’s surprise, manages to stay awake the entire time. Her legs get tired, though, so first Shoyo and then Tadashi let her ride on their shoulders.

Shoyo prays for something amazing to happen with volleyball. He’s careful to be unspecific. It doesn’t have to be something big, either, just a moment of “aha!” that makes him excited. He doesn’t ask what Tadashi or Tsukishima pray for, but Natsu happily reports her prayer for their dad to be home all year.

He can only ruffle her hair.

That night Natsu curls up with Shoyo in the futon, Tadashi taking the middle one and Tsukishima on the other end. Shoyo silently thanks Natsu for this, because she demanded Tadashi stay close.

He goes to bed with a weight off his shoulders.

The next morning, he wakes up to a text from Itagaki.

_If you have some time before term starts, let’s go somewhere._

Shoyo remembers what Tadashi said the night before.

In all honesty, Shoyo has been so uncomfortable since the date, even more so since the kiss. A little time apart and some texting hasn’t made him feel any better. He wants Itagaki to leave him alone.

Knowing that his friend—friends, maybe, if Tsukishima can be counted—will back him up, Shoyo texts back, listening to the deep breathing of Natsu, Tadashi, and Tsukishima.

_I don’t want to go out with you. I don’t like it when you ask. I want you to leave me alone and stop asking me. Thank you._

Itagaki doesn’t text him back.

*

The spring of Shoyo’s second year in junior high passes slowly and agonizingly, but without much event. Before he realizes it the year is over, all his exams are done, and he’s about to be a third year.

Karasuno is so close now, just one year and an entrance exam away.

Shoyo has accepted, more or less, that he’s not going to get to be a regular player in middle school. He’s not alright with it, but that’s what it is. Unless something drastic changes in the next four months he will be in the exact same place on the team he’s always been, which is nowhere.

Instead of moping—tempting as that may be—Shoyo resolves to look at the future.

Over the break between the end of his second year and beginning of his third, Shoyo asks his mother to buy him as many study aides as she can afford. She is bemused by his new zeal for schoolwork but returns home one day with a giant shopping bag she can barely lift.

Thanks to Tsukishima, Shoyo has managed to pass almost all his exams in the last two years. Back in elementary his test scores never hit the double digits and he was forced to take make-up lessons after every exam.

(Shoyo does his best not to wallow in tender feelings for Tsukishima over this.)

That doesn’t mean Shoyo has gotten any better at studying on his own. He’s going to try his best but his inability to sit still is a problem.

Shoyo also saves up his pocket money and buys himself a large poster of a crow. It’s an artistic portrait, thick brushstrokes for wings and a blue-green background that could be the sea or the forest depending on how much he squints. The beak is open in a caw and its eyes are round and glinting.

It’s nothing like the crow mascot of Karasuno. There’s no connection other than in Shoyo’s mind.

All the same the crow makes him _feel_ something, and he saved for a good two months to put it on his wall above his desk.

*

Shoyo’s third year begins with a pleasant surprise. He’s in the same homeroom class as Tadashi, Terada, and Miura, and they all group together when picking seats.

He’s glad to not be in the same class as Sayuki anymore.

Over the last school year Shoyo has found it harder and harder to get along with Sayuki. Every time Shoyo interacted with Tsukishima, Sayuki has behaved like it’s a personal offense. Shoyo has stopped apologizing for it.

Even in practice, they don’t talk as much. Shoyo spends more time with the first years (now second years) who aren’t regulars while Sayuki has drifted toward the group of third years that Shoyo’s never managed to click with.

He likes Terada and Miura a lot, though. And of course, Tadashi is his favorite person.

It turns out that Terada is, surprisingly, as bad at sitting still in school as Shoyo. His grades are good, though—in the top 50 of the school—so Shoyo asks him for the secret.

Terada laughs. “I’ll show you sometime,” he offers, and Shoyo gives him a smile that stretches his cheeks until they hurt.

When Shoyo and his classmates arrive at practice that same day, he’s surprised to see Tsukishima sporting a cut lip.

“What happened?” Tadashi demands, rushing past Shoyo to his friend.

Tsukishima doesn’t say anything. He jerks his head in Sayuki’s direction, where he’s being lectured by their coach, head dropped low.

Tadashi blinks as Miura stomps past them. “Huh?”

“You pissed him off, didn’t you?” Shoyo says.

“Not my fault,” says Tsukishima. He winces and touches his lip. “He came up to me first.”

Before the new first years join them in the gym, Sayuki ends up leaving. Shoyo overhears Miura and the coach saying that Sayuki is banned from club for a week.

It turns out that, while Shoyo’s in the same class as his favorite people, Sayuki and Tsukishima are the only two people on the volleyball team in their homeroom. Their last period was a free study and at some point, the pair had gotten in an argument.

No matter how many times they ask, Tsukishima won’t tell them what it was about.

When the week is up, Sayuki doesn’t return to practice.

*

Shoyo finds himself falling into the routine of teaching receives to the first years who lack experience.

For him, it’s an almost surreal experience. He’s so used to being on the other side of this dynamic that he hadn’t noticed how polished his receives have become. Shoyo is no super libero, but the last two years of non-stop practice have changed the way he moves on a court.

In the mornings Miura will set some spikes for Shoyo. He keeps insisting that he wants Shoyo as a regular, though they both know it’s not going to happen.

It’s fine.

Or, it’s _not_ fine, but Shoyo has given up any expectations for junior high. He’s just thankful that Miura is nice enough to be upset on his behalf.

Most of the first years are shorter than Shoyo which is refreshing.

The third years will often make comments about small the first years are, they can’t believe it, surely they were never that small—but Shoyo remembers with brutal clarity as each of them shot up and loomed over him over the last two years. They absolutely _were_ that small once.

He’s just the only one who’s stayed that height.

*

The weeks pass.

As always, the sports festival happens sooner than Shoyo expects. He and the three other volleyball club members in his homeroom sign up for basketball, Miura loudly telling the rest of the class that with Shoyo on the team they’ll win for sure.

Terada teaches Shoyo his own method of studying during P.E.

“I do math equations while I do sit ups,” he says during one of these sessions. “See, I tape the formulas here, and every time I sit up I try to solve a problem.”

Other subjects have other methods. History is a quiz while running laps. English is word association as Terada practices his serves or receives in club. Modern literature is reading while doing push-ups.

Shoyo has a hard time incorporating academics into these routines. When he tells Terada this, he gets a laugh in response.

“It won’t happen right away,” Terada explains. “It took me years to get to where I am now. My older brother can’t sit still, either, and he taught this to me back in elementary school.”

Thinking while being so active makes Shoyo hungrier than usual.

He starts bringing larger lunches to school, courtesy of his mother with Natsu’s helping hand. It’s a good thing he’s not saving his pocket money for anything right now because he needs it all to buy snacks.

Their homeroom class almost wins the basketball tournament at the sports festival. They make it into the final round and lose by only three points. The girls’ team wins volleyball, though, since a few of the girls are in the volleyball club.

When Shoyo learns this, he pays closer attention to the three tall, muscular girls who look like they could easily beat him up while chewing bubblegum and giggling. Two of them are at his height.

Third year in junior high is the year boys start getting taller than girls.

Shoyo is so used to being the shortest person of his year in the gym that he’s startled to find himself looking down at some of the girls in his class.

He wants his next crush to be on someone shorter than him, he decides.

*

A few days after the sports festival, Shoyo runs into Sayuki in the hallway.

Literally runs into him—Shoyo is dashing around the corner after the bell rings, late to class because he had to use the bathroom, when he bounces off someone’s chest and falls onto his butt on the floor.

“Whoa, there,” he hears from above him, and through watering eyes Shoyo looks up at Sayuki.

“Sorry,” he says blankly.

Sayuki smiles, but there’s little affection in it. “Long time, no see, Hinata.”

Shoyo hoists himself to his feet. “Yeah.”

He should be getting to class, but…

“Are you coming back to club?” he blurts out.

“Nope.” Sayuki shoves his hands into his pockets. “Sorry if that’s not what you want to hear.”

“Why not?”

“I can’t stand to be in the same room as that guy for a second more than I have to,” says Sayuki. Shoyo doesn’t need to ask who he means. “We’re in the same class, so I can’t escape him there.”

Shoyo fidgets. “Um…well, Miura keeps asking after you.”

“I already told him I was quitting.”

“Hey…” Shoyo clears his throat. “Why did…why did you—”

“Why did I punch him?” Sayuki chuckles bitterly. “What, he didn’t tell you?”

“Um. No.”

Sayuki heaves a big sigh. “It’s none of your business, but…I’ll say this: that guy is a jerk, and you shouldn’t trust him. I don’t know what he did to make you think he’s a good guy, but he’s not.”

“Tsukishima _is_ a good guy,” Shoyo argues. “He’s just a little prickly, that’s all. Like a hedgehog. Sure, he can be a jerk, but…”

“Whatever. You’d take his side even if I told you what happened.”

Shoyo frowns as Sayuki steps around him without so much as a “see you,” his hands still in his pockets. He’s tempted to run after Sayuki and demand an explanation, except if he’s any later to class than he already is the teacher will start yelling.

So Shoyo puts the matter aside for now, even though it stews in the back of his mind.

*

The summer tournament comes upon them swiftly as well. Shoyo wonders why the days seem to be speeding up now. Is it because his time in the club is just about over?

As was the case for the last two years, Shoyo sits in the stands and cheers on his teammates.

This year is a lot less bitter than the last two. Shoyo doesn’t hate any of the starting members, nor is he trying to avoid any of them. He’s free to watch the match with pride in his friends and teammates.

And Shoyo finds he likes watching Tsukishima play. That clean, minimalist style as his mind works at lightspeed is the coolest, he thinks.

Since they got into the best of eight during the prefectural tournament for the Spring InterMiddle, they only play one game the first day. Shoyo spends that first day mostly watching other schools, and in the moments that he takes to look around the stands, he finds some interesting additions to the spectators that he hadn’t noticed in the past.

Over there, he thinks he sees the team jersey for Wakunan. Miura points out a couple of high schoolers with the Aoba Jousai uniform. And on the other side of the stands, Shoyo swears he sees a trio in all black. His heart skips a beat at the sight.

The second day, Shoyo doesn’t see any high schoolers, but he finds something else that captures his attention entirely.

Sitting between Tsukishima and Terada, in between matches, Shoyo watches the game between Kitagawa Daiichi and another middle school that he can’t read the kanji for. He remembers Kitagawa Daiichi from last year, with their flexible style.

This is completely different.

The setter for the team, a black-haired boy with the number 2 on his jersey, is aggressive and demanding. His serves are sharp and his sets are fast...so fast that his teammates are occasionally left in the lurch.

“He’s too quick,” Miura says to Shoyo’s left. “No one can hit a set like that.”

Until he speaks, Shoyo doesn’t realize that he’s been leaning forward in his seat so far that he’s almost falling out.

“I want to hit one of his sets,” Shoyo breathes.

It’s so fast, and Number 2 is so sure of his movements. He makes a dump shot and Shoyo feels a sound come up from his throat unbidden.

He wants to jump for that setter. He wants to hit those sets, match his speed to Number 2’s speed. He wants to play that brutal and fast volleyball on the same playing field.

“You’re going to fall over,” Tsukishima says, and grabs the back of Shoyo’s jacket, hauling him back into his seat.

Shoyo blushes, but even that can’t make him look away from the game.

He wants to be on the same team as that Number 2, and if he can’t…well, then, he wants to play a match against him. Not since he first saw the Small Giant play at the Nationals on television has Shoyo been so hungry to play volleyball. It’s a fresh wave of the desire that has fueled him these last three years.

He watches with rapt attention until Kitagawa Daiichi wins the match.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah... so, I've been looking forward to writing this particular introduction since I started plotting this fic...
> 
> I'm sure you've noticed this already but I really adore Natsu and I always want more scenes with her and Hinata being the big older brother. So. This chapter was pure self-indulgence on my part and I apologize for that. (Or do I?) Thank you all for reading supporting this fic! Reminder, I am an Awkward Possum who has trouble replying to comments because I'm so overwhelmed that people are nice enough to tell me what they think... please let me know if you want me to respond! Otherwise please picture me, paralyzed with nerves but grinning broadly, as I check my inbox.


	5. Chapter 5

Shoyo doesn’t get to see the setter from Kitagawa Daiichi again in the summer tournament, since they lose the second match of the second day. It means the team is once again best of eight, but on the drive home Miura is miserable.

That seems only natural.

Unlike Shoyo, who is honestly ready for his junior high club to be over, Miura has a whole host of treasured memories.

Shoyo would bet that none of their senpai kissed Miura behind the gym, either. Lucky him.

Along with the other third years, Shoyo says his goodbyes to the club members. He’s surprised at how many of the first and second years are sorry to see him go, specifically.

“If you miss me too much, you should go to Karasuno for high school,” he tells them, half as a joke.

One second year, a freckly wing spiker named Kozu, nods frantically.

“I will,” he says. “Just you wait for me.”

Shoyo doesn’t know what to say to that, so he laughs good-naturedly and pats Kozu on the back.

“Me too,” says Yukimura. He steps forward and meets Shoyo’s gaze. “I’m going to the same school as Tsukishima-senpai, so I’ll go to Karasuno, too.”

*

Shoyo works up the nerve to ask Tadashi the next day.

“Yeah,” Tadashi says over lunch. “We’re both taking the entrance exams for Karasuno. I mean, it’s the closest school to both our houses, and Tsukki’s brother played on the team there…”

“Oh, right,” Shoyo says, and then frowns. “Oh.”

“Wait, do you know about Tsukki’s brother?” Tadashi asks him. He sounds shocked.

“Um…sort of. He told me a little.”

“Huh,” says Tadashi. “Huh. I knew he liked you.”

Shoyo’s heart stutters. “Wh-what?”

“Tsukki isn’t the sort of person to tell others about his personal life unless he considers them friends. I don’t know if he would have told me if I hadn’t been there when he found out.”

… _Found out?_

“Uh, he really didn’t tell me much,” Shoyo says. He waves his hands in front of him like he’s warding off the idea that Tsukishima likes him at all. “So, I don’t think he thinks I’m a friend.”

“That’s too bad,” says Tadashi. “Tsukki doesn’t have a lot of friends. I think it’s great that you’ve been getting along lately.”

At that moment, Miura and Terada return with drinks in hand.

“Tsukishima?” Miura asks. “Yeah, he definitely isn’t the friendly sort.” He laughs as he sits down in the desk next to Tadashi.

“Yeah, I was in his class last year,” adds Terada. “He wasn’t rude, not like when we were in our first year, but he always had his headphones on. It’s amazing he talks to you, Hinata.”

Shoyo ducks his head. His face is burning.

“He puts up with me because I’m friends with Tadashi,” he mumbles.

“Better than just tolerating you,” Terada tells him. “I mean, he’s not a bad guy—”

“Not at all,” Miura chimes in.

“—but he’s not at all social. He’s the opposite of you, Shoyo. At everything.”

Shoyo scowls. “It feels like you were insulting me just there.”

“Oh, no.”

“We would _never._ ”

“We are the nicest guys.”

The conversation derails, as it often does with Miura and Terada. Shoyo embraces the wild train of subjects they embark on, because it means he doesn’t have to think about Tsukishima.

*

Rather than wrestle his focus away from Tsukishima Kei whenever he finds it wandering, Shoyo has found a new fixation that consumes his waking and sleeping mind.

Shoyo has since found out the name of the setter he couldn’t take his eyes off of.

Kageyama Tobio.

Apparently, he’s somewhat famous in the prefecture. Shoyo hasn’t been paying attention to other schools, mostly because his junior high volleyball experience has been so focused on the basics he hasn’t had a chance to learn the names of players to watch. He knows Ushijima Wakatoshi, but that’s as far as his name recognition goes.

According to Miura, Kageyama Tobio is known as the King of the Court.

The name sends a shiver of anticipation down Shoyo’s spine.

If Shoyo wasn’t so set on Karasuno, he would be trying his best to find out which school Kageyama Tobio was applying for just so that he could be on the same team.

He replays that incredible, lightning fast toss over and over in his mind when he practices receives at home. Shoyo just _knows_ he can hit it, he knows he’s fast enough to match it.

In the midnight hours Shoyo lets himself believe he was _born_ to hit that toss. That he’s the only one in the world destined for it.

Of course, he knows this is stupid.

There’s no such thing as being destined to hit a toss. Even the best match-ups on the court need time and practice to work.

Even so, the idea of Kageyama Tobio is eating him alive.

*

A few weeks after the third years retire from the club, Terada makes their group of four an offer.

“Two-on-two,” he says. “After school some days.”

Miura, who has been growing listless and irritable in turns, perks up at the idea. Shoyo is also quick to voice his agreement.

The holdout is Tadashi.

“If Tsukki comes, that will be five people, so…” he trails off awkwardly.

“Will he even want to, though?” Miura asks. “I don’t mean that in a bad way, just, you know, he’s not the type of guy to practice more than he absolutely has to. I’m still shocked he showed up for morning practice this last year.”

Shoyo ducks his head and hope no one sees his pleased grin.

Tadashi shrugs. “I think he’d be more annoyed if we didn’t ask him than if we did.”

“What a bothersome person,” Terada exclaims, but he’s smiling. “Well, go ahead and ask him, then. I’ll ask Enomoto if he says yes, and we can make it a three-on-three.”

Enomoto, Shoyo remembers, was one of the third years he’s never gotten on well with. They never had a problem with each other, specifically, but Shoyo can tell when he’s not liked. Then again Tsukishima used to dislike him and they manage just fine these days, so Shoyo doesn’t mention it.

To both his and Tadashi’s surprise, Tsukishima ends up agreeing, but says he won’t play if he needs to study that day.

It’s a fair objection.

*

Summer is filled with pick-up games, study guides, and long runs with Terada and Miura.

Nothing in particular happens, nor is Shoyo expecting anything, but he notices more and more that he’s constantly tense. As though he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. Which is strange, because he doesn’t know when the first shoe dropped.

His study time is split between Terada and Tsukishima. That was a fun conversation, the first time Shoyo explained to Tsukishima that he had another study partner.

“What, am I that bad of a teacher?” Tsukishima had snapped at him.

“It’s not that,” Shoyo tried to say. “This is just a different way of—”

“If you hate me that much, why are you here today in the first place? Go ahead and study with your new playmate. I don’t care.”

Had this conversation happened a year earlier, Shoyo wouldn’t have felt so awful. He’d probably have been delighted to be rid of Tsukishima, his crush only beginning to bloom at the time.

But Tsukishima was this…difficult mixture of irritated and hurt, and Shoyo had spent more time than he thought he’d need to in telling Tsukishima how much he appreciated the other’s help over the last two years. In the end, Tsukishima had been appeased after Shoyo bought him a strawberry shortcake (advised by Tadashi) for their next study session.

Even with the abundance of help he’s getting, Shoyo feels like his brain is going to explode from all the academics he’s stuffing into his head. Sure, it makes classes and exams easier, but he’s so exhausted some days that he almost doesn’t want to play volleyball.

Almost.

The pick-up games themselves are nothing too strenuous. A three-on-three game involves a little more movement, but the attack varieties are fewer, so it evens out.

The strenuous part is Enomoto, who treats Tsukishima and Shoyo with as little civility as he can get away with. He’s similarly cold to Tadashi, and Shoyo could have put up with Enomoto except for that.

Judging from Tsukishima’s expression after certain games, he feels the same.

*

School starts again, though Shoyo barely notices. The fall term is much the same as his summer, though slightly cooler and more time in a classroom. He’s still glued to his study aides and his free time is still a mixed bag of studying and three-on-three pick-up games.

And two weeks into the new term, their class changes seats.

Shoyo ends up alone near the front of the room. Tadashi is somewhere behind him, and Miura is a seat behind Terada in the back of the classroom by the window—lucky them.

On Shoyo’s right is the classroom door. On his left is a girl who wears her hair in a ponytail with a bright pink polka-dot bow. When they stand, he sees she’s taller than him by at least eight centimeters.

If he remembers correctly, she was on the girls’ volleyball team.

She is also exceptionally pretty.

Shoyo had wondered, over the summer, if he was perhaps only attracted to boys after all. He hadn’t been around any girls, and the sight of his friends sweating and lifting up their shirts to wipe their faces after a set… Well, he only likes Tsukishima in that way, but Shoyo had appreciated the view. So noticing his new seatmate, a girl, in _that way—_

This sort of thing is confusing.

He wonders, sometimes, if he’d been given the chance to figure out his feelings on his own terms, rather than Itagaki’s, things would make more sense. Maybe they would. Maybe they would make _less_ sense. Either way, he wonders about that.

*

On the second day after the seat change, the volleyball girl introduces herself.

“I’m Matsukawa Fumiko,” she says, smiling at him so prettily that Shoyo feels his face flame up. “It’s nice to meet you. Hinata, right? What’s your given name?”

“Sh-Sh-Shoyo,” he forces out. “Hinata Shoyo. Um. Nice to meet you.”

“You too!” she chirps. “Say, do you have your math textbook? I left mine at home today.”

Shoyo reaches into his desk and pulls out his slightly battered textbook. He hands it over, and Matsukawa flashes him a sunny smile bright enough to make Shoyo he’s looking in a mirror.

A warmth spreads in Shoyo’s chest.

He likes her.

Not like—not like _that_. He just likes this girl. They could be friends.

Near the end of the day, Miura, Terada, and Tadashi make their way over to Shoyo’s desk. He’s fairly sure they’re near his desk because of its proximity to the classroom door and their escape once the bell rings. It’s fine.

“I’ve studied enough this week that my brain's started dribbling out of my ears,” Miura says. “Anyone up for a game?”

“I’ll join,” Terada answers immediately, to the shock of none.

“Let me text Tsukki!” says Tadashi as he pulls out his phone.

“I want to play,” says Shoyo. He glances to his right and, stuttering, proceeds to say: “U-um, if you haven’t texted Enomoto, how about Matsukawa-san?”

Matsukawa’s pretty ponytail swishes as she turns her head. “Hm?”

“Huh?” Miura and Terada say together.

“Y-you were on the volleyball team, right, Matsukawa-san?” Shoyo presses on. His face is probably pink on a fast track to turning red. “Our class won girls’ volleyball during the sports festival because of you, right?”

She smiles at him. “Yep! I was!”

“Great!” Shoyo looks at the three other boys, who are all staring at him with varying levels of stunned disbelief. “It could be fun, don’t you think?”

Miura is the first to recover. “Um…” he hedges, about to say no, but Terada smoothly cuts him off.

“That would be _more_ than fun,” he says to Matsukawa. Terada is wearing what he must think is a suave grin—it does nothing for Shoyo. “If you’re interested in joining us, we would _love_ to have such a beautiful athlete in our presence.”

“Yikes,” whispers Tadashi.

Yikes indeed.

“Um…” Matsukawa glances over at Shoyo a bit helplessly. “I’m happy to play…is this just a two-on-two?”

“Three-on-three.”

“Okay,” she agrees, and smiles at Shoyo. “It’s nice that you remembered that about me.”

“Matsukawa-san, what position did you play in club?” Shoyo asks. He leans in a little, feeling his excitement mounting now that she’s agreed.

She flips her ponytail off her shoulder. “Setter.”

“Then you won’t be on my team,” Miura says. He shrugs when they look at him. “I’m a setter. I’ll try not to do anything too crazy.”

Matsukawa smirks. “Oh yeah? Miyagi’s best-of-eight is going to go easy on an InterMiddle finalist? How sweet of you.”

Terada swoops in. “You played up to finals? Of course you did, you look so strong and accomplished. And beautiful. Did I mention beautiful before?”

“Um—”

“Shut _up_ Ryuji.”

“I’m making conversation.”

“Um…Tsukki says he’s in.”

“Great, he can play on Miura’s team.”

“Mine? Why?”

“Because Matsukawa-san will have _much_ more fun without him around.”

“What the heck?”

Matsukawa looks over at Shoyo again and flashes him a conspirator’s grin. Shoyo returns the expression gladly.

Yeah, he definitely likes her.

*

The beginning of their pick-up game reveals two important details:

The first is that Miura, somewhat to Shoyo’s surprise and dismay, is a little sexist. Or, to be specific: he’s dismissive of Matsukawa’s innate athleticism because she was on the girls’ team instead of the boys’, which Shoyo thinks is stupid.

The second is that Matsukawa is good enough to make Miura shut up.

Shoyo plays on a team with her and Terada and he finds that she is a talented setter. She’s aggressive but quickly assesses the best toss for both him and Terada.

(She is only momentarily shocked by his high jump, and takes it in stride by the next play.)

Matsukawa is, just as the rest of them, only a middle school player at this time. She isn’t on the same level as the Number 2 from Kitagawa Daiichi, either. But she’s good, and even Miura has to shut up and acknowledge her skill.

After three sets of 25, they call it a day. Matsukawa doesn’t even flinch when the boys on the other team use the hems of their shirts to wipe their faces.

She does stare at Tsukishima a little too long for Shoyo’s comfort, though.

“Is everyone ready for entrance exams?” Matsukawa asks.

Everyone except Terada and Shoyo mutter their affirmation.

“Huh? Hinata-kun, you’re not?”

“Just Hinata is fine,” he says, “and I’m not good at tests so I have a lot of studying to do!”

“I’m always looking for a good study buddy,” she offers.

Terada steps half in front of Shoyo. “Well, you can join our study group—”

“Idiot, no one except Hinata wants to study with you,” snaps Miura. “Oy, Matsukawa-san, whatever you do, don’t study with this guy. He’ll make you run laps while reviewing history.”

“Then Hinata and I—”

“Hinata studies with _me._ ” Tsukishima interrupts, a little rudely.

Shoyo should be annoyed. He should be. That’s not the sort of attitude Tsukishima should be giving a new friend of Shoyo’s, especially a girl.

He’s a little pleased.

 _Stop it, stop it,_ he tells himself sternly. _It’s just Tsukishima being unsociable. Stop it._

Matsukawa takes it in stride. “Mind if I join?”

There’s this… _moment_ …where Tsukishima and Matsukawa lock eyes and all six teenagers go quiet, the other four watching them closely.

Something twists in Shoyo’s gut as he waits for them to break eye contact.

At last, Tsukishima says, “I’ll think about it.”

 _See, this is why you should have stopped thinking like that_ , Shoyo tells himself as a feeling close to disappointment stings in his chest.

Despite himself—despite his best efforts—Shoyo has somehow fooled himself into thinking Tsukishima views their study time together as anything special. He’s going to have to get better at lowering his expectations.

They all go their separate ways, headed home or back to the classroom.

Matsukawa follows Shoyo to the bike rack.

“Thanks for inviting me to this,” she says.

“Yeah, thanks for joining us.”

“I haven’t played a good game of volleyball in a while,” Matsukawa tells him. “I think the last time I played with boys was in third grade or something. It was fun.”

“You’re really good,” says Shoyo.

She laughs. “I hope so. I keep hearing I should try for Niiyama Joshi. But it’s too expensive!”

Shoyo kneels down to fiddle with his bike lock. “If they think you’re good enough, maybe you could get a scholarship, though?”

“Huh. I don’t think I’m _that_ good, though.”

“That’s a shame.”

“Ha, ha.” Matsukawa clears her throat. “So, that guy, Tsukishima.”

Shoyo misses one of the numbers on his lock. He winds it back. “What about him?”

“He’s…kind of…nice to look at.”

“…Oh.”

Shoyo finishes unlocking his bike and winds the lock up to put in his bag.

“I mean, also kind of a jerk—”

“Oh, yeah.”

“—and I don’t have time for _that_ kind of attitude, but…still…”

Shoyo hops on his bike. “You should ask him out, if you like him,” he says. He’s proud of how normal his voice sounds. “He’s not that bad once you get to know him. Just a little difficult.”

Matsukawa twists her lips. “Nah, probably not. But thanks.”

“Okay. See you tomorrow.”

“See you!”

Shoyo takes off at full speed.

He likes this girl. He definitely wants to be her friend. It’s just…he wasn’t expecting this, that’s all. It’s fine if she likes Tsukishima. Obviously, Shoyo agrees with her taste. And if the two of them end up going out, that’s fine, that’s _normal._

It’s normal for a boy and a girl to go out together.

Normal. And just fine with Shoyo, because any day now, he’s going to get over this stupid crush and he won’t care who Tsukishima goes out with.

It’s fine.

*

With the regular addition of Matsukawa to their pick-up games, Shoyo no longer has to see Enomoto.

Shoyo had been close to doing something drastic--exactly what, he doesn’t know—to Enomoto, given how he behaved toward Tadashi, so this is a relief.

Matsukawa doesn’t bring up Tsukishima to Shoyo again after that day. Whether or not that’s a good thing, he isn’t sure. She doesn’t bring up studying with Tsukishima either, but sometimes during free period or lunch she’ll corner Shoyo and review material with him.

Shoyo hasn’t ever struggled to make friends with girls, even when they are exceptionally pretty. He even got along well, more or less, with Aya, though he wasn’t always coherent. He soon discovers his friendship with Matsukawa is a source of envy for his male classmates.

In his opinion, they’re all being stupid.

She also insists very early on in their friendship that Shoyo call her “Matsu-chan” like her teammates used to do. At first it’s an awkward transition, but Matsukawa is a lot like Shoyo when it comes to getting along with people and they quickly slip into easy conversation with the nickname.

He thinks it’s a shame, somehow, that he only befriended this girl halfway through his third year. He hasn’t asked her which high school she’s aiming for. It feels a little too…much. Of course he wants to know, but he’ll wait until she’s the one asking.

Sometimes Shoyo thinks that, if he didn’t already like Tsukishima (try as he might to ignore it), he would like Matsukawa that way.

He almost wants to. It would be fun, with Matsukawa. Even if she is taller than him by a hand’s length.

*

The Spring InterMiddle sneaks up on Shoyo.

To be fair, he’s never had such little reason to pay attention to the tournament schedule. He’s not even on the team anymore, so does it matter?

But Miura suggests they go to cheer on their former teammates, and Shoyo gladly tags along.

Five of them end up going to the prefectural preliminaries in total: Tsukishima joins Miura and Shoyo, and Enomoto brings his friend Arai who, like Shoyo, had never gotten to play as a regular. Shoyo sits between Miura and Tsukishima in the stands, Miura acting as the curtain between the two groups that had never gotten along.

Their school doesn’t play until the first round, but the second round has Kitagawa Daiichi.

Shoyo squirms when Number 2 steps onto the court.

“Whoa, hey,” Miura laughs. “Keep it your pants, Hinata.”

“Shut up,” says Shoyo, his cheeks warming.

A few minutes later, Shoyo hears Enomoto say:

“Uh oh.”

Shoyo glances over at Enomoto, who catches his eye and points back at the court wordlessly. He follows Enomoto’s finger and observes the Kitagawa Daiichi team again.

For a second he doesn’t get it. And then he does.

“That’s not going to end well,” Miura says.

Shoyo agrees, but the words don’t come out of him. He feels like his tongue is sticking to the roof of his mouth as he watches Number 2 argue with a couple of his teammates. What they’re saying is too far away to hear, but there’s no mistaking those angry expressions or hard gestures.

The person going toe-to-toe with Number 2—Kageyama, Shoyo reminds himself—has hair that reminds Shoyo of a radish. He’s slightly taller than Kageyama and appears to be snarling.

After Kageyama snaps back, the third teammate who had been hanging back steps in between them and pulls the radish-haired player away. He seems to say something to Kageyama before the two walk off, leaving Kageyama alone with his fists clenched and his head low.

“Is he gonna be okay?” Shoyo finds himself asking.

“How should I know,” Tsukishima grumbles.

“I’m just—”

“Go ask, if you’re so concerned.”

Shoyo huffs. “Tsukishima, can you stop? Please?”

To his right, Shoyo can hear Enomoto and Arai snickering under their hands. Miura is kind enough to hold in his amusement but Shoyo just _knows_ there’s a smile on Miura’s lips.

Tsukishima shifts in his seat. “I’m being serious, though. Go ask. They’ve got another ten minutes of warm ups before they take the court.”

“I won’t.”

“You should.”

“I won’t go.”

“Suit yourself,” Tsukishima says, and reaches into his bag for his water bottle.

Shoyo squirms into his seat, retracting like a turtle.

Why does it feel like Tsukishima is pushing him away? Their interaction isn’t anything different than usual. Shoyo is reading too much into this, just like always, and anyway—

“Guess the King of the Court is facing a rebellion from his subjects.”

Shoyo—along with the four other boys he’s sitting with—look to the left and see a few of the Kitagawa Daiichi jerseys as the non-regular team members take their seats. The one who spoke has his eyes on Kageyama and a mocking smile is curving his lips up.

“Kindaichi was about to blow this morning.”

“You think His Majesty knows?”

“That volleyball freak? Nah. No way. He doesn’t pay attention to anything.”

Shoyo blinks.

King of the Court?

That’s Kageyama’s nickname, isn’t it? Shoyo thought it was a compliment, that Kageyama was so good he’d earned the name…is it not? The way his teammates are saying it, that can’t be a compliment.

Tsukishima chuckles. “Oh, I _see._ Oho.”

“Tsukki—” Shoyo says, before he can think about it.

“Hinata, I think you picked the wrong setter to fall in love with,” Tsukishima says, cutting him off. “Oho. This should be interesting.”

The words are a slap to the face.

“I’m not in love with him,” Shoyo mutters.

“Whatever.” Tsukishima leans forward in his seat, a wicked gleam in his eyes.

*

Shoyo can feel the tension on the Kitagawa Daiichi side of the court all the way from the stands. It strains and pulls the team into their second and final set, and although they win none of the players seem particularly overjoyed.

To Shoyo’s left, Tsukishima seems disappointed that nothing progressed beyond the argument during the warm-up.

It’s not that Shoyo somehow _forgot_ that Tsukishima is a little twisted, and how he enjoys riling people up or watching drama occur. He just…he doesn’t remember it so much, because that’s a part of Tsukishima that Shoyo wishes weren’t so…

He doesn’t like that about Tsukishima.

He doesn’t want to change Tsukishima’s personality or anything, but still, it’s not nice and Shoyo, who doesn’t know how to feel good about other people’s failures, can’t relate to it at all.

Their school’s team passes through their first game with straight sets as well. The five of them cheer on their former teammates, Shoyo yelling loudly for Yukimura and forcing Tsukishima to give his most enthusiastic cheer—which is pretty unenthused, if Shoyo is being honest.

Yukimura seems to be settling into his captaincy well. It probably helps that he’s been a starting member since the beginning of his first year. He takes the court and keeps the team centered. Shoyo knows he’ll be a formidable player in high school.

When the team bows in gratitude to the stands, Yukimura seems more excited to see Tsukishima than Miura, something that Miura squawks about half-seriously.

Since both their school and Kitagawa Daiichi made it into the best-of-sixteen during the summer tournament, neither team plays a second game that first day.

Shoyo tries to find the Kitagawa Daiichi team on his way out of the gym with the other third years, but they’re nowhere to be found.

It’s okay.

Shoyo doesn’t have any idea of what he’d say to Kageyama Tobio after today. “Cheer up” is a little out of place, but “congratulations on passing the first round” seems rude when considering the bitter aura of Kitagawa Daiichi’s team.

Best to leave it as is, he decides. Especially if Tsukishima is tagging along.

*

The next day Kitagawa Daiichi plays first, which the six of them discover when they arrive a few minutes late to the gym—Tadashi joining them today. The teams on the court are just beginning their sets and Shoyo just _knows_ something is about to break on that court.

He’s proven right in the second set.

Kageyama’s tosses—fast and furious and so mouth-watering to Shoyo as ever—begin to pick up speed and his teammates strain themselves to match up with him. After one particularly fast toss that the radish-haired player almost misses, their coach calls a timeout.

And in the huddle, Kageyama starts yelling.

From this distance Shoyo can’t hear what Kageyama is saying, but he can see the body language of the team change from frustration to something cold. And Kageyama freezes, his fists clenched and head bowed just like the day before.

When Kitagawa Daiichi returns to the court Kageyama slows down his tosses, but the spiking power of his teammates goes down.

“They don’t trust him,” Miura says. Today he, Enomoto, and Arai are sitting behind Shoyo, Tadashi, and Tsukishima.

Miura is right, but Kitagawa Daiichi still takes the game in straight sets.

Kageyama stands apart from the team as they soak in the win. Shoyo leans forward in his seat.

 _I’m right here,_ he wants to call out. _I’ll hit anything you toss, I’m right here._

He doesn’t, of course.

Kageyama Tobio is headed to one of the top championship schools. Shiratorizawa or Aoba Jousai, if Shoyo’s figured correctly. And Shoyo already knows where he’s going.

*

The second game for Kitagawa Daiichi is where it all falls apart.

Shoyo had put Kageyama out of his mind for a few hours as the six boys cheered their team through a three-set win. Yamaguchi made Tsukishima wave a sign that Tsukishima had half-heartedly swung around, and Miura shouted himself hoarse.

By the end of the game Shoyo is having such a good time that he almost relaxes, even with Tsukishima’s right arm pressed up against his left side.

And then Kitagawa Daiichi swarms the newly vacated court.

Just as before, there is a strain between Kageyama and his teammates. Any idiot could see it.

“Well, what do we have here,” Tsukishima murmurs as one of the starting members knocks into Kageyama on his way to receive a spike, causing Kageyama to stumble forward.

“Jeez,” Shoyo says. “Stop being so happy about it.”

“What? It’s funny.”

“You suck sometimes.”

Tsukishima smirks and Shoyo almost hates him for a moment.

Twice more, Kageyama’s teammates bump into him and neither apologize or even act like they notice. Kageyama takes it, but it’s impossible not to see the stress building up.

“You know,” Tsukishima says casually, “I heard some of the Kitagawa team talking when I went to the bathroom. They called that”—he points to the super fast toss Kageyama lets loose in the first rally of the game—“the King’s Toss.”

“King’s Toss?” says Miura. “If he’s the king, then aren’t all tosses by him the King’s Toss?”

“This one is special,” says Tsukishima. “It’s the one nobody can hit. Aaaaaand—there!”

He says this as Kageyama sets a ball so fast that the radish-haired player can’t jump fast enough to hit, and the ball goes sailing off into the barrier.

Kageyama and the radish-haired player start arguing.

“Wow,” Miura says, half-laughing. “Is that guy sure he’s a setter?”

“Don’t laugh,” Shoyo says quietly.

No one pays him any attention.

And then, for the next rally, Kageyama sets…and no one jumps. The ball falls to the floor.

Kageyama is called to sit on the bench.

Shoyo’s hand reaches up and grips his shirt, right above his heart. It’s a useless gesture but he feels so…so useless, so it works. He’s never been so sorry for someone in his life, and there’s nothing he can do to fix it as Kageyama sits with a towel over his bowed head, hiding his face from the gym.

“Looks like the king has been dethroned,” Tsukishima crows.

“Stop it,” says Shoyo.

“What’s the matter?” he asks, still smirking. “This is the funniest—”

“I said stop it!” Shoyo snaps.

The other five boys all stare at him as Shoyo stands up.

“What’s the matter, Hinata?” Miura asks hesitantly.

“Why are you like this, Tsukishima?” demands Shoyo. He feels his hands clenching into fists and wonders if he looks like Kageyama right now. “It’s not funny to watch someone fall apart like that. Why are you such a jerk? I hate that about you.”

Shoyo sees Tsukishima’s eyes widen slightly, but he needs to get out of here.

“I’ll see you all at school on Monday,” he announces, and picks up his bag.

No one stops him as Shoyo stomps up the steps in the stands, or on his way to the first floor of the gymnasium.

That toss…the toss that was made for _him_ …what the heck were his teammates doing, calling that the King’s Toss like that’s an insult? Shoyo would hit it. He would hit it hundreds of times a day, and all of them are just _giving up._

 _I’m right here,_ he thinks. _Right here._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Hinata being...extra...about volleyball and Kageyama...this is still strictly a Tsukihina fic I promise, no love triangles. I promise. ...Really!
> 
> This story will be moving to high school soon, one or two chapters more probably. I say that, except it was supposed to be middle of chapter 3 in my initial outline and this is chapter 5. Whoops! I know where I'm going with this story I swear, there's just...I keep adding details. Stop me, I am a menace to myself and others.
> 
> Next time I update I will have moved to a different state. Wish me luck!


	6. Chapter 6

Shoyo doesn’t talk to Tsukishima for the next few weeks. It’s (mostly) not by design; the school festival is upon them and no one has time for a pick-up game after school. Shoyo’s homeroom class works through lunch too, which means Shoyo has an excess of energy to work off.

He studies with Terada, mainly. Both of them are more restless than usual due to being cooped up in their classroom. When he isn’t studying with Terada, he’s with Matsukawa. It’s just easier, since they’re seated right next to each other.

And anyway, Shoyo doesn’t know what he’d say to Tsukishima, even if they did see each other.

Shoyo wants to apologize. He wants Tsukishima to apologize. He shouldn’t have said “I hate that about you” because, no, he doesn’t hate even a single piece of Tsukishima. It would be easier if he could.

Tsukishima was wrong to make fun of Kageyama like that, a person he didn’t even know who was suffering. And Shoyo hates the idea that Tsukishima can make fun of other people so easily, without remorse or empathy.

It’s all so complicated and twisted up inside him, and maybe it wouldn’t be, if Shoyo could just stop these stupid feelings already and get a grip.

Tadashi is under the most strain. Shoyo and Tsukishima aren’t exactly fighting, but to Tadashi that must be how it feels. He’s extremely careful not to say “Tsukki” around Shoyo, when usually he says it upwards of ten times a day.

“Do you want me to walk part of the way home with you or…”Tadashi says a couple of times as their fellow students finally shuffle out of the classroom.

“Just go,” Shoyo has to say, exasperated but not at Tadashi. Never at Tadashi.

The other two former club members don’t have the same problem, but Miura seems quieter, less playful. At least at first. Terada behaves as normal and Shoyo thinks that Miura relaxes after seeing Shoyo won’t lose his temper from a little teasing.

And with all that, Shoyo can’t stop thinking about Kageyama Tobio’s humiliation, and his own uselessness in the face of that.

*

After the school festival is over, Shoyo finds himself in a difficult situation.

Entrance exams are coming up.

Shoyo knows he’s not the smartest person. He has to struggle in areas where people like Tsukishima breeze through. He learns physical things quickly, but other than that…

There’s no other school for him but Karasuno, except Shoyo’s counselor tells him he should look at a couple of back-up schools. Karasuno isn’t exactly an elite private school but it’s no slouch when it comes to academic success. Having an adult say that Shoyo is perhaps better suited to a school with less expectations is a heavy blow to Shoyo’s confidence.

He begins fretting over it, sometimes taking hours to fall asleep as fears of his failure gnaw at him from inside his skull. Almost every day, someone mentions how haggard Shoyo looks. When Matsukawa is the one saying, Shoyo feels a specific shame about his appearance—he’s sitting next to someone so pretty with his sallow face, he should be arrested for defiling beauty.

Shoyo knows his mother is worried about him. She offers to call the school and have Shoyo stay home for a day not once, but twice, and his mother is not the sort of person to encourage skipping school.

And it’s not like he _wants_ to be like this. Shoyo is used to being driven toward success, not running away from the spectre of failure. When Shoyo gets worked up, it’s always a positive thing. He doesn’t know how to stop himself, he would if he did.

*

One night the anxiety grips Shoyo so hard that he doesn’t fall asleep at all, lying in bed and staring up at the ceiling in passive horror. He goes through the morning in a daze, his bike ride thankfully a physical memory in his body so he doesn’t get lost.

Right about after lunch, Shoyo fades. He vaguely remembers putting his head on his desk, Matsukawa off to his left asking if he’s alright, and then someone is shaking his shoulder.

Shoyo blinks awake.

“Oy.”

That voice…

No, no. It doesn’t make sense for Tsukishima to be in his classroom.

“Mm…” he grunts, and rubs at his eyes.

“You’re drooling,” the Tsukishima-like voice says.

When Shoyo wipes at his mouth, his fingers are wet. He flushes in embarrassment. Does he really drool in his sleep? And he’s had two sleepovers with Tsukishima present already—

Shoyo bolts upright.

“Huh?” he manages, looking up at Tsukishima, who is staring down at him with slightly widened eyes. “You’re here?”

“Yeah.”

“Why are you here, Tsukishima?”

Tsukishima frowns slightly. “School is over. Yamaguchi said he couldn’t wake you up.”

Shoyo looks around the classroom. It’s empty. Had he really slept through the second half of the day? Had no one really been able to wake him up?

Jeez, of course he woke up when it was Tsukishima. Why is Shoyo like this?

“Crap,” Shoyo mutters, and drops his face in his hands. It’s a word that fits in everything he’s feeling, but doesn’t quite manage to grasp the scope of how he feels like he’s drowning in open water.

“Don’t worry about it,” Tsukishima says.

Shoyo looks up. “About what?”

At that, Tsukishima shifts a little, slanting his eyes away from Shoyo’s face. Shoyo blinks a couple of times and realizes—this is the first time they’ve spoken since Shoyo snapped at him.

“U-um—” he starts.

“Want to go outside?” Tsukishima suggests, still not looking at him.

His chest feels tight. “Sure.”

“Okay.”

Shoyo follows Tsukishima out of the classroom and down a set of hallways, watching the taller boy’s back but keeping silent. He can’t read Tsukishima all that well. He’s not at Tadashi’s level yet, and perhaps never will be. He can’t guess what’s on Tsukishima’s mind.

Maybe that’s why Shoyo likes him. He’s spent so much time trying to figure this boy out, to understand what goes through his head, that of course he pays more attention to him than anybody else. Whether it started in curiosity or hatred—both, if Shoyo is being honest—he’s had Tsukishima Kei on his mind more than anyone else since the beginning. No one else stood a chance.

They stop outside of a gym.

“Here’s good,” says Tsukishima.

He pulls back the netting that separates the gym from the hallways when the gym doors are open and gestures for Shoyo to go in ahead of him. Shoyo does so wordlessly, hyper-aware of Tsukishima’s presence behind him.

Tsukishima closes the netting and heads over to a rack of basketballs against the wall. He picks one up.

“First to fifteen?” he says.

Shoyo blinks. “Huh?”

“Basketball,” says Tsukishima. “You versus me. First to fifteen wins.”

“Um,” says Shoyo. “You’re like, twenty centimeters taller than me. That’s not a fair game.”

“We both know you can jump over my head.”

“I’m not wearing gym shoes.”

“Does that matter?”

“Are we even allowed to be in here right no—”

“Hinata,” Tsukishima says, and Shoyo thinks it’s the first time he’s ever heard Tsukishima call him by name, “are you going to keep making excuses? If you don’t want to, then say so.”

He sounds just frustrated enough that Shoyo thinks, well, if this is something Tsukishima actually wants, then how can he say no?

“First to twenty-five,” he tells Tsukishima.

They square off on the far side of the court, where one solitary backboard remains lowered.

Shoyo is right. Tsukishima’s height does give him an unfair advantage. Still, he plays against Tsukishima with everything he’s got, putting all his cooped up energy and frayed nerves into his jumps and throws, scoring points with difficulty as Tsukishima easily breezes through the game.

It might have been demeaning, this slow march toward losing, except Shoyo can’t remember the last time he saw Tsukishima so fired up.

In the end, Shoyo loses by ten points. He lets out a groan of dissatisfaction and flops onto the cold and likely dirty gym floor on his back, staring up at the ceiling.

“I wish I was tall,” he says.

He hears the faint squeak and groan of floorboards to his right, and looks over to see Tsukishima sitting down beside him.

“It’s not all that great, being tall.”

Shoyo scoffs. “I bet you’ve always been the tallest kid in the class, haven’t you?”

“…Yeah.”

“Thought so.” A nasty impulse surges in Shoyo, and before he can censor his words he says, “Must be why you’re so comfortable looking down on people.”

Tsukishima is silent.

The guilt and shame hits Shoyo almost instantly, and the guilt especially so, because for a second he relishes knowing that he’s served Tsukishima some of his own bitter medicine.

Shoyo sits up and says, “I didn’t mean that.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Okay, I did, but not like…” he ruffles his hair in agitation. “I didn’t want to say it like that. That wasn’t what I meant to say. I’m sorry.”

Tsukishima shrugs. He isn’t looking at Shoyo. “It’s fine. You’re probably right, anyway.”

Shoyo wants to argue. He wants to say that it was a mean-spirited thing to say and it wasn’t something to take seriously…but the problem is, he _does_ think like that and there’s no use pretending otherwise. That would be an insult to both of them.

With a sigh, Tsukishima gets to his feet. He bends down and holds out his hand for Shoyo to take. After a second, Shoyo does, and he tries to pretend all his focus isn’t on the texture of Tsukishima’s palm.

He lets go as soon as he’s on his feet.

Tsukishima picks up the basketball by his feet and passes it gently to Shoyo.

“So,” he says.

“So,” Shoyo echoes.

They pass the ball back and forth for a time in slightly-uncomfortable silence.

It feels like Tsukishima wants to say something, although he’s not opening his mouth, so Shoyo fights the urge to speak up in the quiet and lets Tsukishima take the lead.

At last, Tsukishima says, “I’m not good at this.”

Shoyo, about to pass the ball, nearly drops it and ends up hugging the basketball to his chest.

“Huh?” he says.

Tsukishima pushes his glasses up his nose and gestures vaguely between them.

“This,” he says. “Being friends. I’m not…I’ve only had Yamaguchi as a friend. I…I don’t know…with anyone else, I’m not good at it. So.”

Shoyo stares. “I thought you thought you were good at everything.”

“Shut up.”

“No, I didn’t mean—” Shoyo squeezes the ball to his stomach. “I just, you know…sometimes it feels that way. I’m not trying to make fun of you.”

“You better not be.”

“I’m not!”

Tsukishima blows out a puff of air and gestures for Shoyo to pass the ball back to him. Shoyo does, and watches Tsukishima dribble a few times before throwing the ball up in the air and catching it. Then he continues:

“Anyway, what I mean is…if I did something to upset you—and pay attention, because I’m never saying this again—I’m sorry.”

_Oh, not fair._

Shoyo has to turn around for a few seconds because he can’t control his expression. Whatever his face is twisting into, it has got to be horrible and a dead giveaway. He puts his hands to his face in an attempt to wrestle his features back to normal.

“Oy, what the heck are you doing?”

“One second!” Shoyo yelps, and he tells his heart to calm down. It doesn’t listen.

It never listens.

“Hey, if you’re laughing at me—”

“I’m not!” Shoyo says, and spins around. “I’m not, I’m…happy.”

Tsukishima’s eyes narrow. “Gross.”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“Whatever.”

Shoyo clears his throat. “I don’t need you to be sorry,” he tells Tsukishima. “I just…sometimes, you know, you can cross the line.”

“I guess.”

“You do.”

“Well, if you don’t want me to apologize then—”

“I just want you to stop when I ask you to,” Shoyo says, all in a rush. “Like at the game. I asked you to stop and you didn’t. It’s…listening to each other is how friendship _works._ ”

Tsukishima shifts and looks down at the basketball he’s gripping. “Why were you so upset, anyway?” he mutters.

“Hah?”

“You don’t even know him.”

Shoyo frowns. “What do you mean?”

“Does it matter, whatever I was saying about him?” says Tsukishima. “You’ve never talked to him. Why do you care so much about him? Enough to get mad at me, even, I don’t…” He trails off and starts dribbling the basketball again.

Wait. He’s talking about Kageyama Tobio. And...

“Are you jealous?” Shoyo asks. His voice squeaks on the last syllable, he’s that shocked.

“Like hell.”

“But you are!”

“Why would I get jealous over _you?_ ” Tsukishima snaps.

But Shoyo is shaking his head already. “No, this is just how you were back in first year, when you hated me,” he explains. “When Tadashi and I started getting along, don’t you remember?”

Crap, he’s so… _touched_ right now. His chest feels so warm.

Tsukishima’s cheeks dust the faintest pink, and Shoyo almost dies because it’s too cute.

Even if it’s not in the way he secretly wants, there is proof right here that Tsukishima _cares_ about him. That he’s _important_ to Tsukishima. Enough for some pretty childish jealousy to surface.

“If I ever _do_ get to meet Kageyama,” Shoyo says, “that doesn’t mean I’ll stop being your friend. You can have more than one at a time, you know.”

“…I’ve only ever had one until now.”

Shoyo is definitely blushing. There’s no way he isn’t, not with how warm his face feels right now.

“Well, you’ve got at least two now,” he says.

*

Slowly, life returns to normal.

With the ice sufficiently thawed between Shoyo and Tsukishima, the awkward tension with Tadashi dissipates and the three of them begin study sessions for the upcoming entrance exams in earnest. Shoyo doesn’t even mind when they’re joined by their classmates, although he always sits next to Matsukawa when she accompanies them.

Shoyo’s anxiety lessens as Tsukishima establishes himself as a steadying, though prickly, presence. Tsukishima seems more at ease now that Shoyo has officially declared them friends. He’s a little softer and warmer, and it makes Shoyo _feel_ in ways he doesn’t want to.

But that’s no different than usual, even if those feelings are becoming harder to ignore.

The weather turns, and Shoyo brings a duffel bag of extra clothes to Tadashi’s house (advised by both their parents) in case the mountain pass closes unexpectedly. There’s no snow yet, it’s not nearly cold enough, but there’s been enough rainfall that mudslides aren’t uncommon.

Occasionally, Shoyo will see Sayuki in the hallways, passing between classes or during lunch.

He keeps wanting to ask about it, ask either Sayuki or Tsukishima what exactly happened between them on the first day of the school year, but Shoyo can never find the right time to bring it up. And no matter who he asks, he knows he won’t get the full story.

They still play three-on-three pick up games with Matsukawa instead of Enomoto, and Shoyo is grateful that the other boys so readily accept a girl on the court. Even Miura has gotten his head out of his ass, although Terada continues to flirt unsuccessfully.

It’s an almost perfect existence, except for the amount of studying—and the lack of a volleyball team to play on with regular practice.

At least, Shoyo thinks, he’ll be with Tadashi and Tsukishima, though he knows for certain that he won’t be classmates with Terada or Miura come next spring. The knowledge is bittersweet, a hard swallow in the back of his throat like candy-coated medicine that’s dissolved too soon.

*

And then, one day as they’re walking back from the library together, Shoyo asks Matsukawa which schools she’s applying to.

He doesn’t mean to—he’s been trying his best not to ask, for some reason feeling like it’s too personal a question—but it slips out before he can hold it in.

(That’s been happening to him more and more lately.)

“Oh, I haven’t told you?” Matsukawa says, surprised. “I’m applying for Niiyama Joshi. If I can get a scholarship, even a partial one, I’ll definitely go there. But then, you know, Karasuno High is closer to my house and my sister still has her uniform from last year, and it fits me, so we’ll see.”

Shoyo stops moving.

“Hinata?”

“Karasuno?” he repeats dully.

No, no, no—this should make him happy! Just a few minutes ago he was saddened by the thought that he wouldn’t see Matsukawa next year. Why is he so paralyzed with… _whatever_ this is right now?

“Mm,” she agrees. “My sister went there. But you probably guessed that from what I told you, huh.”

“I’m applying for Karasuno,” says Shoyo. It’s like he’s choking on the words, trying to force them out.

Matsukawa’s face lights up. “I didn’t know that!”

“Yeah.”

“Wow! I thought I wouldn’t have any friends if I went there,” she gushes. “Hinata, we could be classmates next year!”

“Yeah,” he agrees, bobbing his head. He opens his mouth—

 _Oh_.

So that’s why he’s so messed up.

Shoyo swallows and opens his mouth again to say:

“Tadashi and Tsukishima are also going to Karasuno, so you’ll have a few people you know.”

Matsukawa’s ponytail swishes as she looks over her shoulder in the direction they’d come from, back toward the library where Tadashi and Tsukishima are still studying.

“That’s great,” she says, a little breathless. “Um. That’s really great. I’ll do my best!”

Shoyo wonders when he became the sort of person to actively wish a good friend of his doesn’t succeed. He doesn’t like this side of himself.

“I’ll do my best too,” Shoyo manages to say, and it’s as close to an encouragement as he can pull off.

*

The entrance exams are over before Shoyo really realizes it. He’s spent so much time preparing for them, worrying about them, dreading them, that waking up the morning after and remembering they happened seems fake.

He does remember, clearly, Tsukishima shooting him a reassuring smile just before the exam began.

And then he remembers glancing over at Tsukishima and watching as Tsukishima slipped his pencil between his lips during a pause, his brow furrowed a little as he considered whatever question or problem that had given him trouble…

Shoyo isn’t proud of it, but he burrows under the covers and lets his imagination and hand roam.

*

The weather is colder every day.

Snow comes early, and Shoyo spends his first night of the season at Tadashi’s house. They stay up late playing video games and watch the flurries of snow cover the ground and rise, slowly but steadily. Shoyo thinks he might not make it home for a few days.

Shoyo learns that Tadashi has a crush on a girl in their class, one who sits two seats over from Tadashi. He finds it easy to tease his friend about those feelings, but he’s a little envious all the same.

The next day the snow continues to fall and school is cancelled. None of the snow ploughs are up and running yet and since the next day is Saturday, no one seems to be much concerned about clearing the still-falling snow in a hurry.

It’s decided, after a phone call to his mother, that Shoyo will spend the weekend at Tadashi’s, unless the snow magically melts in the next couple of days.

And so Shoyo and Tadashi waste the morning (and some of the afternoon) building snowmen and making snow angels. Shoyo is better at making snow angels, they discover. Tadashi has more patience to pack snow over and over again than Shoyo.

Eventually Tadashi’s mother shames them into a hour or two of studying, which Shoyo doesn’t like nearly as much as when he’s with Tsukishima. Tadashi is nicer, but he’s not as good as explaining the things that confuse Shoyo. It’s fine, though. They’re both still fresh from the marathon studying for their entrance exams, and all they’re really doing is review.

Tadashi is a peaceful presence, Shoyo decides.

When he’s with Tadashi, Shoyo doesn’t have to think difficult thoughts, and he doesn’t have to feel complicated emotions. They just have fun. There are no expectations and no need to withhold.

Except…he does withhold. All the time.

*

With the weather turning, their little group of volleyball players is forced to give up the outdoor court and are stuck inside. Sometimes they manage to erect a volleyball net in the middle of an empty gym, but most of the time there’s only basketball available to them.

Tadashi, surprisingly, is not so good at basketball. Neither is Matsukawa. The pair will come to watch the other four, but they’ll sit against the wall and chat rather than participate.

Shoyo doesn’t mind this, except he wonders, in the back of his mind, if Matsukawa’s eyes are fixed on Tsukishima the entire time.

 _Don’t think about it,_ he has to tell himself, again and again. It’s stupid.

He hates that so much of his focus is eaten up by Tsukishima, and who might like Tsukishima, and what Tsukishima is doing. Shoyo wants to think about volleyball and Karasuno. These are the things that have fueled him for three years. It’s not fair that he can’t pay attention to them.

It’s because he doesn’t have team practice, Shoyo decides one day in class, as the teacher drones on. He doesn’t have that routine. That’s what it is.

*

Shoyo is leaving the bathroom one day after school when he sees something that makes his stomach roll around like a boat in a storm.

There’s Tsukishima, whom he picks out right away--always, _always_ picks out of a crowd--and whose profile makes Shoyo’s heart skip a beat. And there, standing far too close to him, face to face, is Matsukawa.

From what Shoyo can see, they’re talking quietly and hurriedly.

He sort of stares at them for a long moment. It doesn’t cross his mind at all that, should they turn to see him, he’d look strange with his mouth hanging open like that. Nothing crosses his mind, actually, just a white buzzing between his ears.

Matsukawa puts her hand on Tsukishima’s arm.

Tsukishima doesn’t pull away.

At that point it wouldn’t have mattered what they were talking about. Shoyo knows that Tsukishima hates being touched, that he recoils from most physical contact. Why isn’t he pulling away from Matsukawa right now?

He’s been afraid of this for months, and telling himself not to be afraid of it, and that he isn’t afraid of it. But…

It’s normal for a boy and a girl, who are friends, to become closer and start dating. Or whatever it is that’s going on here. That’s totally normal.

Shoyo can’t breathe.

*

The temperature rises enough for a few days, and going outside doesn’t require at least three layers. The snow packed on the sides of the streets melts and runs in rivers down the drains, icy spots crack and slim, and Tadashi invites Shoyo to go on a run with him.

Maybe Tadashi has picked up on Shoyo’s restlessness, or maybe he’s also restless. Shoyo doesn’t know. He doesn’t ask, just agrees immediately and straps on his running shoes right after the bell rings to let them out of school.

Tadashi takes Shoyo along the same path that, over a year ago, Shoyo had followed Tsukishima on to force him to return to club practice. It’s mostly covered in snow but Shoyo recognizes it. How could he not?

Up ahead, there, that’s where he first pushed Tsukishima to the ground and off the path.

And over there, far to the right of them, is the small hill and the tree where Shoyo pinned Tsukishima down. The leaves have fallen off, but Shoyo would know that tree anywhere. He’s seen it in his dreams over and over again, after all.

The tree prompts him to speak up.

“I think Matsu-chan likes Tsukishima.”

“Huh?” Tadashi wheezes, just behind Shoyo.

Shoyo turns and begins running backward. “I said, I think Matsu-chan likes Tsukishima.”

“What?”

“I said—”

“No, I _heard_ you,” Tadashi says, waving him off. “What are you talking about? And why?”

Shoyo flushes. He spins around and calls over his shoulder, “Race you to the end!” before taking off and running at top speed.

Of course he’ll win. He doesn’t care. Shoyo just needs a minute to himself, to…rethink, or whatever.

Not ten minutes later he touches a wooden fence post and whirls around with his hands in the air, shouting his victory to the small figure of Tadashi hurtling toward him.

Tadashi approaches him and taps the fence post before leaning over and heaving a couple of times.

“You’re really fast,” he says.

“I can go faster,” says Shoyo. Maybe he can. He hasn’t tried yet.

“What was it you were saying before? Matsukawa-san liking Tsukki?”

Shoyo’s lungs won’t take in air for a second.

“Um. Nothing.”

“You think she likes him?”

“I don’t know, it was just a thought.”

Tadashi stands up straight and meets Shoyo’s eyes, frowning slightly. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen Tsukki date someone before. He’s never liked someone. At least, he’s never told me about it.”

Shoyo sinks into a crouch and stares at the ground.

He shouldn’t be feeling relieved. He shouldn’t. That’s awful of him.

It’s just, he’s been so wrapped up in this, hasn’t stopped thinking about that hushed conversation in the hallway for a week, tossed and turned about it…

Above him, Tadashi says:

“But if she likes him…”

This isn’t what he wants to hear.

A year’s worth of silence, frustration, loneliness, bottled longing—it all pours out right there, right out of Shoyo’s mouth and he can’t restrain himself.

“I like Tsukishima.”

Tadashi is quiet. Shoyo doesn’t look up.

Then:

“As a friend, yeah, me too.”

Shoyo hadn’t wanted to say it, had spent so long keeping his feelings wrapped up in friendship and feigned disinterest, in the continual act of _being normal,_ but now that he’s gone and said it, he doesn’t want to hold it back.

He’s an honest person, when given the chance.

“Not as a friend,” Shoyo says, as he cranes his neck to meet Tadashi’s eyes—

And he sees, in the understanding smile, in the pained eyes, in the slightly wrinkled nose, that Tadashi had been giving him the easy out if Shoyo wanted to take it.

Too late for that.

“Sorry,” Shoyo says, for both his admittance and his insistence on the truth.

“No,” Tadashi tells him. “No, it’s not something to be sorry about, but…Shoyo, Tsukki isn’t…he won’t…”

“I know,” says Shoyo. “I _know_ he’s not like that.”

Tadashi shakes his head. “I’m not saying that to be mean, I’m really not. And…it’s _okay_ if you’re like that, I don’t mind—”

“I like girls, too.”

“That’s okay with me! I just…Tsukki won’t like it, I don’t think, if you tell him. I don’t want either of you to get hurt, Shoyo. You’re both my best friends. I’m really sorry.”

“I won’t tell him,” says Shoyo. He stands upright, laces his hands behind his head. “I absolutely won’t tell him. I’ll get over it. I…I wanted to tell _someone._ ”

Tadashi looks so pained, so frustrated. “I wish I could support you,” he says. “I _want_ to.”

Shoyo waves him off. “I don’t want to…to do anything about it. So you don’t need to support me. Just…thanks. For not…”

It takes a second for Tadashi to catch his meaning. “You’re my friend,” he says, sounding angry. “There’s nothing about you that I wouldn’t think is okay!”

Tadashi is a really good person, Shoyo thinks. Really kind.

*

Something soothes inside Shoyo after his fumbled confession to Tadashi. It’s like something inside him had been eating him alive, and now it’s backed off and he can breathe.

It’s easier to be around Tsukishima now, and Matsukawa, and everyone else. Shoyo doesn’t feel like he’s playing a role anymore, pretending to be one person when he’s another.

And it’s not like they know anything more about him—Tadashi promised to keep it a secret, and Shoyo trusts him completely—but he’s able to laugh harder, smile wider, to the point where the people around him mention that he seems happier.

As the snow continues to fall that winter, Shoyo finds himself relaxing.

His desperation is solely for volleyball now, the itch under his skin all about the feel of a spike on his palm and how high he can jump. He doesn’t wake up in the middle of the night, sweating, thinking of hands and lips that are off-limits.

Maybe all he needed to do was say it out loud, just once.

The new year passes, and Shoyo says goodbye to his crush.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Idk if I've been obvious enough about it but weather metaphors are one of my go-to cliche moves. Because: I am a giant hack. Anyway please don't hate me for this chapter...I swear I know what I'm doing!!!
> 
> Will we ever get out of this middle school hell? The answer may surprise you...!
> 
> Thanks to all who wished me luck with my move! You guys are lovely, and my new place is lovely. Cheers!


	7. Chapter 7

Shoyo gets accepted to Karasuno High School.

He is officially going, after years of dreaming and hoping, and it takes a lot out of Shoyo to not march up to his guidance counselor and rub it in his face.

Both Tsukishima and Tadashi get in as well, but Shoyo hadn’t thought they would fail for even a second. Shoyo congratulates them all the same, and he beams as they both pat him on the back. Tadashi is much more physical in his congratulations, moving on to grip Shoyo’s sides and shaking him a little before wrapping his arm around Shoyo’s shoulders with a squeeze.

It makes Shoyo’s heart unbearably warm that, after learning about him, Tadashi doesn’t shy away from physical closeness.

He’d been worried about that, a little. Right after Shoyo blurted out his feelings for Tsukishima, he’d been so afraid that Tadashi would hesitate to touch him. But there was no difference, before or after.

Shoyo really loves his best friend.

And he finds out, several days after receiving his own acceptance, about Matsukawa’s admittance.

“I got into Karasuno,” she says during a period break.

After the new year and the new term began, their class once again moved seats. Shoyo is now two seats in front of Matsukawa, and on Terada’s left. The person sitting directly behind Shoyo has friends on the other side of the classroom so during breaks Shoyo will spin around in his seat to speak with Matsukawa, while Terada attempts to chat her up.

Shoyo wishes he wouldn’t, though. He knows she likes Tsukishima, so it makes things awkward.

“Congratulations!” he says to Matsukawa, and means it.

“Thanks!” Matsukawa’s ponytail swishes as she plants her chin in her hands and grins at him.

“Have you heard back from Niiyama Joshi, yet?”

Matsukawa sighs prettily. “Mm. I got in there, as well. It’s a partial scholarship…and you know, it’s not as much as we were hoping for. So I don’t know. It depends on how much I want to play volleyball.”

“Niiyama Joshi goes to Nationals almost every year, right? That’d be amazing!” Shoyo says.

“Yeah,” she agrees, “but championship schools have their drawbacks too, you know. If I’m not the absolute best I won’t even be a regular, let alone a starting member. Chances are I might never play.”

Shoyo shakes his head. “If they offered you a scholarship they must think you can do it.”

She shrugs and sighs again. “I’m still thinking about it. Once my parents go over their finances I’ll know if I even have a choice.”

“I think you should go to Niiyama, if you can,” Shoyo says earnestly. “But I’ll be happy if you go to Karasuno with me!”

It’s the truth.

He’s accepted the idea that Matsukawa and Tsukishima might end up together. He’s mostly okay with it now. Shoyo isn’t _entirely_ over Tsukishima yet but it’s fading every day, and he can be around Matsukawa without feeling jealous or miserable.

Which is good. He likes Matsukawa.

*

The last hurdles of junior high are the exams at the end of the year, which is exceptionally high because Shoyo is burnt out for studying. It feels like that’s all he’s done this year and trying to cram any more information into his head is like pouring water into an already-full pitcher.

The nights that Shoyo spends at Tadashi’s house, when the weather is bad, are the best. Tadashi’s mother lets them play video games and stay up late on the weekends. She insists they study a little, but she’s not like Shoyo’s mother, who has been cracking the whip since Shoyo’s acceptance to Karasuno.

One of those weekend nights Tadashi puts down his controller after beating Shoyo and asks too casually: “If you don’t mind me asking, since when have you liked Tsukki?”

Shoyo rubs at his face. “I don’t though, anymore.”

“Huh?” Tadashi looks confused. “But it was only a couple of months ago that you told me—”

“I’ve been getting over him,” says Shoyo.

Tadashi frowns. He seems unsettled. “But why?”

“Isn’t it easier this way?”

“Huh? Wait—Shoyo, there’s nothing wrong with liking Tsukki, you know that, right?” Tadashi is leaning in, his eyes wide. “You can’t help who you like, right?”

“It’s fine,” Shoyo tells him. “I’ve been trying to get over him for a while, and now it’s happening. It’s what I want, so it’s fine.”

That doesn’t seem to sit well with Tadashi, but he doesn’t argue with Shoyo. Instead, he queues up the game for a second round and both of them pick up their controllers.

After a few minutes Shoyo says, “I started liking him in second year. During the summer.”

“Oh.”

“He bought me a popsicle,” Shoyo adds. He doesn’t know why he says it. The words make it seem like Shoyo’s affections were easily purchased.

But Tadashi just nods like this makes perfect sense.

That night, and some nights that follow, Tadashi continues to ask Shoyo questions. Has he ever liked another guy? What is the full story with Itagaki? How does Shoyo know he likes both boys and girls? What does he like about Tsukishima?

From another person it might have been invasive, but Tadashi is so earnest, and he says over and over again that Shoyo doesn’t have to answer if he doesn’t want to.

Sharing with Tadashi, answering these questions, speaking openly—it’s as though Shoyo is settling into himself, making peace with the parts of himself that he’s been fighting for over a year. He’s incredibly lucky to have Tadashi.

These are the days Shoyo likes the most, when the studying is minimal and he can just be himself.

Less enjoyable are the days with Tsukishima, who has officially taken it upon himself to be Shoyo’s tutor even if Shoyo doesn’t want it. It’s a mark of friendship, Shoyo knows this, but having Tsukishima drag him to the library by the back of his shirt collar like a runaway pet is humiliating, especially if there are witnesses.

It’s easier, now, to focus on schoolwork instead of the way Tsukishima’s hand holds his pencil or the twist of his mouth as he considers how to explain a problem to Shoyo. He still notices, but it’s been pushed to the background now.

Shoyo might not enjoy these forced study sessions, but he knows he should be thankful for them.

He says as much to Tsukishima once, on a day in late January when the show is falling outside the library windows, and they’re the only two people at the tables—maybe the only two people in the library.

When he does, Tsukishima’s ears turn red and he mutters something about how Shoyo should just be smarter, and he’s only helping because it’s a matter of pride at this point.

It doesn’t fool Shoyo for a second.

He’s figured at least this much out about Tsukishima: he’s extremely loyal. He values his friends immensely because he struggles to form friendships in the first place. Shoyo knows Tsukishima is helping him so much because he wants both his friends to be with him next year.

*

It’s the second week of February when Matsukawa plops a chocolate cupcake on Shoyo’s desk and beams down at him. He looks up at her in confusion.

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” she says by way of explanation.

Shoyo looks down at the cupcake, and then back up at Matsukawa. “Oh,” he says. “You didn’t need to get me anything, you know.”

“I’m going to Niiyama Joshi,” she says. “So I’m going all out.”

“You decided?” Shoyo asks, sitting upright.

Matsukawa nods. “I want to be more confident in myself. I can definitely make starting member if I work hard at it.”

“You can,” he agrees. “You’re an amazing setter.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m sad we won’t be classmates next year, though,” says Shoyo after a moment. “I was looking forward to that.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“Tadashi will probably be disappointed, too,” he says, then adds, “and Tsukishima.”

Matsukawa blushes a little when Shoyo says Tsukishima’s name and ducks her head ever-so-slightly. He’s definitely figured her out. Shoyo pushes back an unexpected wave of…regret? He’s not sure what it is, only that it doesn’t belong here.

“I don’t think Tsukishima will care,” she murmurs.

Shoyo doesn’t get a chance to ask her what she means. The bell rings as their teacher enters the classroom and everyone hurries to take their seats. And, later, there’s never a moment to bring it up without sounding too interested.

He doesn’t understand.

He’s _seen_ Matsukawa and Tsukishima together. Several times, he’s spotted them huddled together, off on their own, talking too quietly for Shoyo to overhear. And although Shoyo has been getting over Tsukishima, those moments have definitely stood out in his mind as painful aftershocks.

Unless Shoyo has been very, _very_ off—and he doesn’t think that’s the case—the pair of them have been moving in a forward direction. What the heck happened?

*

Shoyo gets the answer to that question, or at least a partial answer, several days later.

After an hour of studying after school in the library, Shoyo manages to convince Tsukishima they need a break. Tsukishima, probably fed up with Shoyo’s restlessness, agrees and they head to the gym where their group of friends has been playing basketball during the winter.

Once he slips into his gym shoes, Shoyo takes a lap as he waits for Tsukishima. They meet on the far side of the court from the door, a basketball already in Tsukishima’s hands.

“First to fifteen,” Tsukishima says.

“Huh? First to twenty-fi—”

“No.”

Shoyo pouts, but he doesn’t argue.

The game goes by quickly, and as usual, Tsukishima wins. Shoyo groans his disappointment, but he can acknowledge that it’s not as frustrating as it would have been, had the game been volleyball instead.

This thought prompts Shoyo to say, “I miss volleyball.”

“Huh.”

He glances over at Tsukishima and his tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth as he watches Tsukishima lift his shirt hem and wipe at his sweating face, exposing most of his torso.

_Jeez._

Tsukishima is well-built. Anyone who’s attracted to guys would think the same thing. But it’s so supremely unfair to have _that_ in Shoyo’s face while he’s getting over him.

“You don’t…do you still not like volleyball?” Shoyo stutters.

“Well…” Tsukishima drops his shirt hem— _thank God_ —and frowns. “I don’t dislike it. I like it more than I used to, but…”

Shoyo heaves a loud sigh. “Well, maybe you’ll like it more in high school. You _will_ be joining the volleyball team in high school, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So that’ll be our goal!” Shoyo grins up at him. “You’ll like volleyball, and we’ll go to Nationals.”

“Sure,” Tsukishima says, shrugging.

“Oh!” exclaims Shoyo as a thought occurs to him. “If we make it to Nationals, we’ll see Matsu-chan again.”

Tsukishima rubs at his forehead. “Well, whatever.”

It’s the most unenthused response Shoyo has heard from Tsukishima about the lone girl in their group yet. He remembers what Matsukawa said and before Shoyo can stop himself he says:

“Did you get anything from Matsu-chan on Valentine’s?”

“Mm.”

The way he says it is noncommittal.

Shoyo pushes on. “I got a cupcake,” he tells Tsukishima. “Same with the other guys.”

“Good for you.”

“What did you get?”

“Doesn’t matter. I don’t eat chocolate.”

Shoyo is pretty sure that’s a lie. He’s given Tsukishima parts of his snacks in the past that have had chocolate in them, and he watched Tsukishima eat them without complaint.

It’s like…like if he can make this one thing happen, if he can push this one thing into place, it’ll clear away all the remaining debris of his feelings. Like it’s proof or something. The final threshold in crossing from “feelings” to “friendship” permanently.

So Shoyo says, before he can really stop to think about it:

“The distance between Niiyama Joshi and Karasuno isn’t that far, you know. And Matsu-chan says she lives near Karasu—”

“What does this have to do with anything?” Tsukishima snaps.

Shoyo blinks. “I’m just saying, if you wanted to ask her out she’d definitely say yes and the two of you would be able to see each other a lot even if—”

“Who says I want to ask Matsukawa out?” demands Tsukishima.

His voice is sharp and cold, and Shoyo flinches. He stares up at Tsukishima and finds himself unable to speak as narrowed eyes glare down at him behind black-framed glasses.

After a few seconds he finds his voice, sort of. “I’m…I’m only—”

“Who I want to go out with is _my_ business,” Tsukishima says. “And I’ve never wanted to go out with Matsukawa. Don’t push that on me.”

Shoyo drops his gaze and realizes he’s gripping the basketball to his stomach tightly. He considers dropping it to the floor.

“I just think,” his traitor mouth continues, “that the two of you get along great. I think you’d be a good couple.”

“What _you_ think doesn’t matter, does it?”

“Um—”

“I’m so sick of people telling me who I should be going out with!” Tsukishima says bitterly. Shoyo’s head snaps up and he watches Tsukishima begin to pace. “I won’t just _like_ someone because I’m told it’s a good idea, and honestly it’s _insulting_ that anyone believes I’m that easy to convince one way or the other. Who asked anyone to do that, huh?”

“Other people have—”

“And you know,” Tsukishima goes on, a rarely-opened floodgate making up for apparent lost time, “I barely like Matsukawa as a person. I give her study advice because she’s friends with _you,_ I don’t go out of my way to spend time with her, and this is what I get in return? That’s crap!”

“Other people are telling you to go out with Matsu-chan?”

“Yeah!”

“Who?”

It’s not that…not that Shoyo would be mad, if it were Tadashi. If it were Tadashi, that’d be the same thing Shoyo has been doing right now, so there’s no reason to get mad. But he thinks it might hurt, so Shoyo holds his breath as Tsukishima’s frown becomes deeper and he answers:

“Stupid Miura and Terada. Like we’re friends or something—that moron Terada saying I’d be lucky to go out with her. _Lucky!_ Like he knows a damn thing.”

Shoyo bites his lip. “I didn’t know.”

Tsukishima scoffs and turns around to wheel the basketball rack back into the closet. He turns around a gestures at Shoyo to toss him the ball.

For some reason, Shoyo can’t let go. It’s like a shield for him.

He tries to think of something to lighten the mood, anything, and he thinks of Tadashi, how he carelessly brushes aside Tsukishima’s irritation with one easy phrase, and he says:

“Sorry, Tsukki.”

Tsukishima’s outstretched hand drops. “Don’t,” he says quietly.

Shoyo’s face flares hot and he grips the basketball tighter.

“Sorry.”

It’s hard to see—he really hopes he won’t start crying. His eyes sting as much as the rejection did.

He called Tsukishima “Tsukki” once before, at the same game they’d fought about Kageyama, and Tsukishima hadn’t said anything then. Shoyo thought, maybe, it meant the nickname was okay, but it’s not, and finding that out right now really sucks.

“No, I don’t—” Tsukishima sighs. Shoyo doesn’t look up but he hears a ruffling sound that could almost be Tsukishima messing with his hair. “Oy. I just meant, that’s Yamaguchi’s name for me. You should have your own.”

Shoyo turns around and scrubs at his eyes before whirling back and throwing the basketball at Tsukishima’s unexpectant form.

“Jerk,” he says, lightly as possible.

“Idiot,” Tsukishima says back.

They put the basketball rack away and head out of the gym, returning to the library even as Shoyo whines and begs for the day to be over already.

“So what should I call you?” he asks Tsukishima as they near the double doors.

“I don’t know.”

“Kei,” Shoyo says, and then panics. “…-chan,” he adds lamely.

Tsukishima glances down at him. “No.”

“Kei-kun?”

“No.”

“Keicchi?”

“No.”

“Kei-pon?”

“Gross, no.”

“Kei-nyan?”

“Shut up.”

“Kei-tan?”

“You know what,” Tsukishima says, approaching their usual table, “I take it back. Tsukki is fine.”

“No, no,” Shoyo says, burbling with laughter. “No, I want to get this right. What about…”

“You could just call me Kei.”

Shoyo’s eyes lock onto Tsukishima’s, and there’s a long moment where they just… _look_ at each other. It’s weird. Shoyo doesn’t know what to make of Tsukishima’s expression. It makes something not quite dead yet stir in him.

He forces a laugh out. “But other people call you Kei, right? Like your family! This has got to be something just for me.”

“None of my friends call me that.”

“That’s because you don’t have any friends.”

“Wow.”

“Hey, I’m just quoting you.”

They lapse into easy banter, rather than getting back to studying, and Shoyo finds himself laughing more than he ever has with Tsukishima.

In the end he _has_ crossed some threshold regarding Tsukishima’s friendship, though he’s found a line he shouldn’t tread in the future. It’s almost nice, looking back, that Tsukishima was comfortable enough to get irritated in front of Shoyo and say it out loud rather than pushing him away.

And Shoyo promises himself he won’t bring up Matsukawa again.

*

As February passes on and March approaches, the snow begins to melt, a little bit each day.

Shoyo finds himself anxiously scanning weather reports each morning, hoping that no storm or sudden drop in temperature will come upon them and pile fresh powder onto old slush, but it seems they’re to have an early spring this year. The large icy patches that he does his best not to slip on are worth it—with warmer weather on his side, Shoyo can play volleyball on the outdoor court again.

At first it’s just Miura who joins Shoyo on the court, and all they can really do with each other is practice serves and receives. It’s better than nothing, though, and Shoyo’s face almost splits with joy when he handles the volleyball.

Then Terada, eternally restless, joins them—followed immediately by Matsukawa, who insists she needs to stay in shape for Niiyama Joshi to get that starting position. Tadashi brings Tsukishima a week or so later.

And then something surprising happens.

Enomoto, dragging behind him the two friends of his who went to see the InterMiddle Spring preliminaries along with Shoyo’s friends, asks to play a full game one afternoon. Initially they consider a game with four-on-four, but Matsukawa manages to get three third year girls who retired from the volleyball team with her, and they play a proper game.

It’s the only proper game Shoyo has played since he had to retire from the club along with all the other third years. Not that it’s an _official_ game, but Shoyo’s never played one of those, either. But there are six members on each team, and all twelve of them have come to a weird truce. Enomoto and his friends aren’t snapping at Tsukishima and Shoyo, and Tsukishima is being unusually civil.

Everyone playing is here because they like volleyball. Shoyo figures that, if it’s for that reason, he can’t bring himself to completely dislike anyone on the court. Not even Enomoto.

So the truce holds. All told, by the time the snow melts completely away and exams are upon them, the twelve of them play five games in total.

*

Time seems to blur and distort.

Exams come up, exams happen, exams pass Shoyo by. The results are waiting to come out, the results are in, Shoyo gets the results.

They graduate.

Shoyo can’t really grasp it, because he feels like, well, he just _got_ here. Even though it’s been three long years, it also feels like three minutes. And a lot a has happened but he still feels like the shortest kid in the gym on his first day of junior high.

After the graduation ceremony a surprising number of Shoyo’s classmates from this year and years past want to exchange contact information and to stay in touch. His phone is out so much that the battery begins to get dangerously low.

At one point, he runs into Sayuki. They stare at each other for a few seconds—Sayuki has shot up in a gangly growth spurt, so Shoyo has to crane his neck way up—and then Sayuki nods at him wordlessly before moving on like Shoyo is some stranger.

Shoyo almost calls after him to ask what really happened between Sayuki and Tsukishima at the beginning of the school year.

He doesn’t.

It’s not that he isn’t curious still. He is. But it doesn’t _matter_ as much anymore. Shoyo isn’t as hungry and desperate to know everything involving Tsukishima, because Tsukishima is his friend and no longer his crush. There’s no need for Shoyo to hunt that information down.

Anyway, if he really can’t stand not knowing, he and Tadashi can push Tsukishima into telling.

*

The day after graduation—the first day of the spring break before high school begins—Shoyo, Terada, Miura, and Tsukishima have a sleepover at Tadashi’s house.

Shoyo arrives first, mostly because he’s got nothing to do at home. His mother is taking Natsu shopping for clothes since she is starting elementary school this year, and Shoyo isn’t allowed to sleep in during school breaks. Which is fine, he isn’t one to sleep in anyway, but he doesn’t even have his baby sister to play with during the day.

So Shoyo arrives at Tadashi’s house before ten in the morning and ends up helping Tadashi and his mother air out futons and clean the house (which he is sort of bad at), and Tadashi’s mother tries to teach Shoyo how to make proper onigiri before she sends him off in despair to play with Tadashi.

Miura and Terada come around three, both of them pulling up on their bikes and introducing themselves to Tadashi’s mother at the same time.

(It’s at this point that Shoyo proposes a bike race between the four of them but is shot down.)

Not until dinner does Tsukishima join them, which is a little ridiculous because not only does he live the closest, but Shoyo knows that Tsukishima was doing nothing all day except for listening to music. And yet Shoyo was the one helping out all day.

Matsukawa doesn’t come.

She was invited, of course, to at least join them for dinner, but her family is leaving for a trip the next morning so she has to pack.

Shoyo is equal parts disappointed and relieved by this.

The five of them spend the evening in the way teenage boys usually spend time together: loud, slightly inappropriate, and a touch of playful violence.

They split up into teams to play Tadashi’s game console, and the fifth person is the impartial referee. Only Miura ends up being _actually_ impartial, but it makes for a fun time as they argue about bad calls. All of them agree that Tsukishima should never be allowed to act as referee, ever.

Since Tadashi’s mother only had three futons to share, Shoyo shares the bed with Tadashi. The five of them don’t even bother with a rock-paper-scissors over it—Shoyo is the smallest, so it makes the most sense to have him share with someone.

The next morning he wakes up before everyone else and runs his usual route around Tadashi’s neighborhood.

The sun is barely risen. Goosebumps rise up his arms and legs, but once Shoyo starts running in earnest he’s warm enough that they recede a little.

A block away from Tadashi’s house on his return, Shoyo sees Miura slouched against the brick wall separating the houses from the street, his ankles crossed and phone in hand. When Shoyo nears him, Miura looks up and puts his phone in his pocket.

Shoyo slows to a walk and stops a few steps away from Miura.

“Hey,” he says.

Miura smirks at him. “You really can’t stay still, huh?”

Shoyo shakes his head. “If I slow down I’m dead.”

Over the past year, he’s learned while playing pick-up games of volleyball that the only thing he has to brag about are his jumps and his stamina, which he’s built up through long runs and longer bike rides. So if Shoyo has any hope of being a regular on Karasuno’s volleyball team, he really can’t slow down.

Thankfully, Miura doesn’t make this into a joke. He tilts his head and gestures for Shoyo to join him. They walk slowly back to Tadashi’s house.

“You ready for high school?” Miura asks.

“Yes.”

“Oh, that’s right, you’ve wanted to go to Karasuno since—what? Sixth grade?”

“Yep,” Shoyo says. “What about you?”

Miura shrugs and tucks his hands into his jacket pockets. “Well, I didn’t get accepted to my first school of choice, so I don’t know. Sort of.”

“Aoba Jousai, right?” Shoyo says, straining to pull out a half-forgotten memory.

“Yeah.” Miura nods. “Seijou.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. I knew it’d be a long shot, anyway.”

Shoyo bites his lip. “So where are you going?”

“Wakutani Minami,” says Miura. “Wakunan. I’ve been hearing good things about their team since the prefectural tournament a couple weeks ago. They’ve got a good captain right now, apparently.”

“Oh.”

“Mm.”

Shoyo glances sideways up at Miura. “Wonder if we’ll get a chance to play each other in a real game.”

“We might,” Miura says uncertainly. He pulls up short and turns to face Shoyo. “Listen, Hinata, I wasn’t sure if I should tell you this, but I’ve hear the other high schools in the prefecture have a name for Karasuno’s volleyball team. It’s…not nice.”

“What is it?” Shoyo asks.

Miura grimaces. “Flightless birds, fallen champions.”

Shoyo scratches his head. “I don’t get it,” he admits.

“It means…” Miura sighs. “It means Karasuno isn’t a good team anymore. They’ve stopped being a powerhouse school. I don’t know if it’s going to match up to what you have in your head.”

It’s like he’s forgotten how to breathe.

Shoyo stares up at Miura, one hand coming up to grip his shirt over his chest like that will help him recover somehow. His mind is curiously blank. White noise.

“Huh?”

Miura observes him. Shoyo doesn’t know what it is on Miura’s face—concern? Worry? Annoyance? He honestly can’t figure it out.

He doesn’t have to.

With a shake of his head, Shoyo says, “Then we’ll just have to make it strong again, I guess.”

“Yeah,” Miura says doubtfully. “I’ll be rooting for you, Hinata.”

“Thanks.”

*

Over the next few weeks Shoyo mostly stays at home, playing with Natsu. He practices receives by himself and takes long runs through the mountain pass, but he doesn’t visit his friends or go out to buy things from stores. His mother already picked up school supplies.

He and Tadashi send each other pictures of themselves in their new black, stiff-necked uniforms. Tadashi’s uniform is a little big for him, but Shoyo’s fits nicely. He’s glad about that, except it means his mother isn’t expecting Shoyo to have a growth spurt.

Tadashi also sends Shoyo a picture of Tsukishima in the new uniform.

It’s sort of unfair that Tsukishima looks so good in it. Unlike Shoyo and Tadashi, who appear like middle school kids playing dress up in their older brothers’ uniforms, Tsukishima seems like a proper high school student. The bored look on his face in the photo only enhances that atmosphere.

Shoyo tries not to think about what Miura said.

True, he’s only heard about Shiratorizawa’s high school division heading to Nationals the last couple of years—at least, so much as he hears anything about high school volleyball, which isn’t much.

That Ushijima Wakatoshi goes to Nationals regularly doesn’t come as a surprise.

Shoyo remembers watching Ushijima in his first year of junior high when he crushed Shoyo’s school with a brutal straight-set win. He’s likely only gotten more powerful in the last two—almost three—years. If Shoyo wants to go to Nationals, Karasuno has to beat that left-handed powerhouse of a spiker.

So, he tries not to think about what Miura said.

*

The first day at Karasuno is a beautiful, warm spring day. A few puffy clouds float past the clear blue sky and the cherry blossoms leaves are falling gently.

Shoyo only notices this because Tadashi points it out.

He’s not in the same class as Tsukishima or Tadashi, unfortunately. At Karasuno there are university prep classes and Tsukishima is in one of those. Tadashi’s class is down the hall from Shoyo’s.

It sucks, sure. But Shoyo’s classmates are all nice. He’s sure he’ll like them a lot once he gets to know them, but he can barely focus on anything that’s happening in the classroom.

Good thing lessons haven’t fully started yet.

Shoyo at least fills out his club application when the forms are passed around at the beginning of class. There’s no way he won’t.

As soon as the final bell rings Shoyo tears off to the closest bathroom. He strips out of his uniform in one of the stalls and gets into his red gym sweats, stuffing the discarded black uniform into his bag and zipping down the hallways.

On his way to the gym where the volleyball team meets Shoyo dodges a few upperclassmen doing club recruitment of their own.

He knows where he’s going.

Tadashi texted Shoyo that he and Tsukishima will be headed straight home today during lunch, so Shoyo doesn’t bother waiting for them. He’s a little annoyed by that, but not enough to let it seriously bother him.

When Shoyo enters the gym he barely takes the time to slip into his volleyball shoes. He steps inside and sees that someone is already there.

His heart catches in his throat.

It’s _him_.

Kageyama Tobio, practicing jump serves, right in front of his eyes.

“Uh…” Shoyo blinks.

No.

There’s no way.

Kageyama Tobio is an amazing player. He should be at Aoba Jousai or or Shirtorizawa, not Karasuno—not that Karasuno isn’t worthy, it’s just, well, it doesn’t make any sense, and he gave up his pipe dream of playing on the same team as Kageyama already, so what is he doing here, really?

“Hah?”

Shoyo starts when he realizes that Kageyama is looking at him.

“Huh? What?” Shoyo blurts out.

“You asked me what I was doing here,” says Kageyama, scowling. “Who the hell are you?”

Shoyo glances around the gym. They’re the only two people present.

He must have said it out loud.

“Hinata Shoyo,” he introduces himself, a little breathless. “I…I saw you play for Kitagawa Daiichi last year.”

Kageyama’s scowl intensifies, which Shoyo hadn’t realized was a possibility. He’d assumed the previous scowl was the maximum intensity.

“Don’t talk to me,” Kageyama says.

“I-I-I’m looking forward to being your teammate!” Shoyo splutters. He can barely hear himself speak over the blood rushing in his ears and the heavy pounding of his heart. Is this what it feels like to fall in love? Is he in love with Kageyama Tobio?

“That makes one of us,” says Kageyama. “Stay out of my way, dumbass.”

Oh.

Whatever hazy dreamland Shoyo had stepped into when he entered the gym vanishes, and all he can hear now is the smack of the volleyball against Kageyama’s hand.

He’s imagined meeting Kageyama Tobio, the King of the Court, for almost a year. He’s pictured that lightning-fast toss, the fluid grace of his sets, the effortlessness of his volleyball skill. Shoyo has spent so much time dreaming up scenarios in which he and Kageyama meet and become allies, teammates, friends, but he was missing one crucial fact in his fantasies:

Kageyama Tobio is a complete asshole.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are three scenes that are/were my "I super want to write this" for this story. The official introduction for Kageyama...was the second of those three. (In case you're wondering about the first one it was the scene in chapter 2 where hinata and tsukki have their wrestle/convo.)
> 
> Not sure why it took me so long to write this...I'm currently job hunting so it's not like I have a lack of free time...?! There's a lot of transition in this chapter, so maybe it's that. Hope you liked it though.


	8. Chapter 8

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Shoyo says at lunch the next day.

“Oh, come on,” says Tsukishima. A wicked smirk plays at the corners of his mouth. “You’re on the same team as the King of the Court. Shouldn’t you be doodling his name and yours with hearts all over them or something?”

“Shut up,” says Shoyo.

Tadashi looks as though he’s trying very hard not to laugh. “Shoyo, he’s got a point. You spent the last year obsessing over Kageyama.”

“Well, now I know better,” Shoyo tells them. “He sucks.”

He _does_ suck.

Kageyama Tobio managed to insult Shoyo in every way possible—his height, his inexperience as a starting member, his admittedly poor serves, and his energy level. There’s nothing wrong with Shoyo’s energy level, it’s his best feature! Incredible stamina is his best feature by far. That’s how he can pull off all his jumps and bursts of speed.

The most incredible thing was how Kageyama did all of that within the first five minutes of their meeting. In the end the captain had come between them and backed Kageyama down.

Shoyo knows that if he hadn’t spent the last three years of his life dealing with a far more insidious jerk—Tsukishima—he would have launched himself into a fight with Kageyama then and there. His disappointment was only compounded by the senpais’ utter lack of interest in Shoyo and total fixation with Kageyama.

“The captain is cool,” Shoyo admits aloud, sullenly. “He really wants to go to Nationals.”

In addition to the calm and commanding Sawamura, there had also been the kind third year setter Sugawara, or Suga as the others called him. Less pleasant was second year Tanaka, who reminded Shoyo a little bit of a shark and kind of scared him.

“Does he?” Tadashi asks, interested.

“Mm. He made a speech about it right before he told Kageyama to get along with the rest of the team.”

Tsukishima snickers. “How did His Majesty take to being bossed around?”

“Find out for yourself.”

“We’re coming to practice today,” Tadashi assures him.

“You better.”

Practice the day before had mostly consisted of introductions and a tour of the gym, interspersed with a list of daily chores. Shoyo had met the three other second years besides Tanaka, and they’d done some stretches and drills before ending the day.

At least in that, Shoyo had proven himself adequate. The captain—whom Shoyo could tell was excellent at defensive plays by the way he moved—had complimented Shoyo on his quick receives.

But Shoyo has to wonder…

There was no coach present. No sign of a teacher supervisor. And with only two third years and four second years…no libero to speak of…

Shoyo thinks back to what Miura said the morning after the sleepover.

_Flightless birds, fallen champions._

He won’t accept that as blind truth, but there’s obviously a reason the saying has caught on enough that middle school players have heard it.

Which brings to mind, once again:

Why is Kageyama Tobio here at Karasuno?

*

“Wow,” says Sawamura as he takes in Tsukishima. “You’re tall.”

Shoyo’s mouth twists as he sees the appreciation for Tsukishima’s height all over their captain’s face.

It’s junior high all over again—Tsukishima immediately becomes a starting player and Shoyo is overlooked, in more ways than one. The Karasuno team is small enough that Shoyo will make regular by default but…he hasn’t earned any of it.

There are times when Shoyo resents Tsukishima’s height. He’s close to 189cm now and still growing. Shoyo is exactly 162.8cm (measured yesterday) and it feels like he’ll never catch up.

“Both of you are middle blockers, then?” Sawamura asks Tsukishima and Tadashi.

“Yep!” says Tadashi, whereas Tsukishima only nods his affirmation.

“And…” Sawamura’s eyes dart around until he catches sight of Shoyo. “All three of you went to the same junior high? All three on the same team?”

“Yes,” Shoyo answers quickly.

Sawamura’s face cracks into a grin. “That’s great, that’s great!” he says. “We take teamwork very seriously here. There aren’t as many of us as there would be in a powerhouse school, so we have to take care of each other.”

Shoyo likes that.

He also knows that he trusts both Tadashi and Tsukishima completely, and Kageyama absolutely not at all. He’ll bet the same goes for everyone.

Just two days ago, if someone had told Shoyo he’d be on the same team as Kageyama Tobio, the King of the Court and the setter of his dreams, Shoyo might have lost his mind from excitement. Weird, how quickly things can change.

“Every year we like to have our first years play each other,” says Sawamura, “so we can see what your strengths and weaknesses are. We’ll make it this Saturday so we can go a few sets. Since there are only four of you…well, how about we make it a three-on-three and put one of the current starting members on each team, hm?”

“I’ll be on Hinata’s team.”

Shoyo blinks. He looks up at Tsukishima.

“Huh?” he says, voice strangled.

He’d been so sure that Tsukishima and Tadashi would pair up together, like they always do. Even Tadashi looks a little startled—and then he frowns.

“I was going to be on Hinata’s team.”

“Too bad,” says Tsukishima. “I called it first.”

Shoyo spares a glance to Kageyama and sees the permanent scowl on that unpleasant face turn from something irritated to something…else.

Despite himself, he feels sorry for the guy.

“Actually,” Sawamura says gently, but so very firm, “I’ll be the one assigning the teams. Hinata and Kageyama will be on Team A with Tanaka. Yamaguchi and Tsukishima, you’ll be on Team B with me.”

His tone leaves no room for argument.

“For the next few days, I want Teams A and B to practice together,” Sawamura continues. “Building teamwork and trust is essential to volleyball. If you can’t work with your teammates, you can’t be on the court. No exceptions.”

Shoyo doesn’t miss the way Sawamura’s eyes pass over Kageyama when he says that last part. Surprisingly, Kageyama doesn’t argue—at least, not until the shark-like Tanaka pulls the pair of them to one side of the gym with a ball in hand.

Then Kageyama says:

“I won’t pass to anyone not essential to winning.”

Shoyo feels like his spine has just been shot through with electricity. “I know I’m short, but I can jump!” he says. “Don’t count me out before you see me play.”

Unexpectedly, Tanaka laughs. His mouth goes wide and his eyes shine as he does so, and he stops looking so intimidating and predatory.

“I like you, shrimpy,” he says, patting Shoyo on the head.

“It’s Hinata.”

“Sure thing, shrimpy.”

*

Practice between the three of them starts off rocky—Kageyama unwilling to pass to him, let alone toss—and only improves when Tanaka confiscates the ball and points out to Kageyama that if he wants to win, he’s got no choice about working with both of his teammates.

After that, Shoyo spends a little more time with Tanaka than Kageyama.

It pisses him off, but even now Shoyo still wants to hit Kageyama’s tosses. The guy might be a pain, but his sets are breathtaking. But if Kageyama won’t give Shoyo the time of day, then he’s not going to waste his time pursuing the impossible.

…No, that’s a lie.

Shoyo _will_ pursue the impossible, but he won’t get in Kageyama’s face. Tanaka is an incredibly strong and focused wing spiker, and Shoyo will learn all he can from his teammate. He’s been taking scraps from his senpai for years now and he doesn’t see a reason to stop. And this way, Kageyama has no way to claim Shoyo is useless.

It seems to be working, because by the end of the day Kageyama isn’t snarling and growling in his direction.

“See you tomorrow for morning practice,” Shoyo says to Kageyama as they’re cleaning up.

Kageyama grunts.

Shoyo opens his mouth to provoke a response from his sulky teammate, but before he can he feels a weight on his head.

He looks up.

“What are you doing?” he asks Tsukishima.

Tsukishima isn’t looking at him. “My friend said something to you,” he says in a low, deceptively pleasant voice to Kageyama. “Aren’t you going to answer? Or does His Majesty not listen to the words of us mere commoners?”

Shoyo’s eyes widen in shock.

Sure, Tsukishima is a jerk, but he’s not the type to go out of his way to provoke people who haven’t irritated him personally. What’s going on?

At his words, Kageyama stiffens and turns around, dropping the handle of his mop to the floor with a clatter. “Don’t call me that,” he snaps.

“Oh? Is someone feeling a little sensitive?”

Kageyama glares. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

“Me?” Tsukishima ruffles Shoyo’s hair, and despite his silent shock at the situation, Shoyo can’t help but think it feels nice. “No one, really. Just wondering why you spent the entire day ignoring my friend when you were supposed to be practicing with him.”

Shoyo frowns up at Tsukishima. “You were watching us?”

The hand in Shoyo’s hair flexes, but other than that, Tsukishima doesn’t acknowledge his words.

“Listen up,” Kageyama says with a snarl. “I’ll tell you what I told _him—_ I won’t play with anyone who isn’t essential to winning. It’s that simple.”

“If that’s the case,” Tsukishima says lightly, “then shouldn’t you be the one on the bench? Sorry, I meant the sidelines.”

Kageyama freezes.

Shoyo can’t believe what is happening here, but he’s not going to put up with it anymore.

“Kei-chan,” he says, “come _here._ ”

He grabs the hand Tsukishima has on his head and hauls them both over to the supply closet, towing their mops behind them. As soon as they’re inside he drops Tsukishima’s hand and crosses his arms, glaring up with what he hopes is a stern expression.

“What are you doing?” he demands.

Tsukishima looks down at his hand and then up at Shoyo. “You called me Kei-chan.”

Shoyo flushes. “Yes, I did.”

He hadn’t thought about it in advance. It just sort of…came out. Naturally, like rolling off his tongue.

“I said you can call me Kei.”

“I’m not going to,” says Shoyo, “and you’re changing the subject.”

Tsukishima shuffles his feet. “That guy pisses me off.”

“So?”

“So I felt like it.”

“Well, it’s not helping.”

“I wasn’t trying to help you.”

Shoyo narrows his eyes. “Obviously.”

“I won’t apologize to him,” Tsukishima says.

“I didn’t ask you to,” says Shoyo, “but at least leave him alone until Saturday, okay? Please?”

Tsukishima glances over at Kageyama, which makes Shoyo do the same. Kageyama’s back is to them and he’s continuing to mop the floor, awkwardly moving around Tadashi when they cross paths.

“Whatever,” Tsukishima says.

It’s probably all that Shoyo is going to get.

“Thank you.”

*

It doesn’t surprise Shoyo that, after Tsukishima interfered, trying to get Kageyama to work with him is almost impossible. Even Tanaka scolding him can’t make Kageyama open up and try.

Shoyo tries very hard not to vent his frustration at Tsukishima.

He knows that Tsukishima is an amateur when it comes to having friends, so knowing when to step in and when to let things be isn’t something he’s figured out yet, but Shoyo was so close to getting Kageyama to work with him that day. And Tsukishima ruined it.

The next two mornings Kageyama won’t even acknowledge him, and during afternoon practice he does the bare minimum of participating with Shoyo.

On the third day of this cold shoulder treatment Shoyo spends his lunch hunting down Kageyama’s classroom.

Also not a surprise is how isolated Kageyama is in his classroom.

Kageyama’s desk is almost in the middle of the room, about as middle as a person could get, and yet all the clusters of classmates are grouped away from him. No one’s even bothering to reach out to Kageyama who is eating a sandwich with a light frown crinkling his brows.

Does he not know how to smile or something? Shoyo has never seen Kageyama without some degree of frown on his face.

He enters the classroom and waves at a couple familiar faces before taking the seat directly in front of Kageyama, straddling the chair backwards so they can look each other in the eye.

It takes a second for Kageyama to register his presence.

“What?” he says through a mouthful of sandwich.

“You got some time?” Shoyo asks.

“Yeah,” says Kageyama. He swallows and gestures vaguely around the room. “It’s lunch.”

Shoyo’s starting to get an inkling, here, that Kageyama Tobio is actually a little stupid.

“Why won’t you toss to me?” he says.

“I told you,” Kageyama replies. “I won’t toss to anyone who isn’t—”

“Essential to winning,” Shoyo finishes for him. “Yeah, yeah. You said that already. What makes you think I’m not essential to winning when you’ve never played with me? Or against me?”

“You’ve never played as a regular,” says Kageyama.

“Which means you’ve never seen me play, so how do you know?”

Kageyama opens his mouth, pauses, and clamps his jaw shut again.

“See, you don’t have a good answer for me.”

Still no answer.

Shoyo pulls up his courage.

“You know,” he says, “Last year, I saw you play in the InterMiddle.”

That gets a response from Kageyama, who’s face goes from mild frown to severe, and he opens his mouth to snarl an angry response. Or so Shoyo assumes, since he keeps talking before Kageyama can get a single syllable out.

“I thought your tosses were amazing. My friends all made fun of me because I couldn’t stop talking about them. I really want to try hitting the super fast one you did—I’m really fast, so I think I can do it, see? Imagine if I could, wouldn’t that be so cool?”

Shoyo can hear—and feel—himself getting more and more excited as he keeps talking.

Kageyama’s frown changes from “I’m pissed” to “I’m concentrating” and he leans back in his chair.

“I don’t want to do that toss anymore,” Kageyama says slowly. “My teammates hated me when I did that.”

“ _I’m_ your teammate now,” Shoyo points out.

“Hm.” Kageyama takes a bite of his sandwich and chews it slowly. “I’ll think about it,” he says once he’s swallowed.

*

That afternoon practice, Kageyama isn’t _actively_ avoiding Shoyo. He isn’t going out of his way to work with Shoyo either, though, so it comes as a bit of a shock when Kageyama asks their captain at the end of if the two of them can stay behind.

“Sure,” Sawamura says, eyeing them both with some surprise. “Just clean up when you’re done.”

“We will.”

“Tanaka,” Sawamura calls, raising his voice slightly. “Stick around, will you?”

“Hm?” Tanaka breaks off from the cluster of the four second years and walks over, his hands tucked into his jersey pockets.

Shoyo really wants one of those jerseys, the official team name written on the back and the whole outfit black from top to bottom. He’s itching to get out of the school’s standard maroon gym clothes and really be a part of the team.

Sawamura gestures between Shoyo and Kageyama. “These two want to stay behind,” he says. “Do you mind supervising them?”

Tanaka pulls a face.

“I’ll do it.” Sugawara appears at Tanaka’s side. “After all, it’s what a _good senpai_ would do.” At that, he nudges Tanaka with his elbow.

“Of course I’ll stay behind with them,” Tanaka says loudly.

Shoyo watches this happen in total confusion. He thought Sugawara was a gentle, kind person, but for a second he had a wicked smirk on his mouth that did not fit that gentle image at all.

Out of the corner of his eye, Shoyo sees Tadashi and Tsukishima watching their cluster. Tadashi has a slightly puzzled expression, no doubt wondering when Kageyama pulled his head out of his ass, while Tsukishima…Shoyo can’t read that look.

He shrugs at them and gestures to Sawamura.

Tadashi gives him a wave and exits the gym. Tsukishima lingers for a moment longer before scowling and leaving as well.

“Oy, you,” Kageyama says, and Shoyo’s attention snaps back. “Let’s get started.”

*

That afternoon, and the next day, Shoyo is almost regretting his choice to push Kageyama into a partnership. _Almost._

As it turns out, Kageyama’s super fast toss is, well, _super fast._ Shoyo’s missed it over and over, although he’s at least proven to Kageyama that he’s fast and he can jump, so there’s that.

It’s not a problem with his form, either. Shoyo’s spent the last year spiking good tosses from Miura and Matsukawa, and shitty tosses from everyone else. He can hit a ball in midair, and he’s fast enough to pull off a quick.

So why can’t he hit Kageyama’s toss?

A year. He spent a _year_ fantasizing about hitting this toss, went to sleep dreaming about it and woke up craving it. Shoyo’s wanted to be on the same team as Kageyama Tobio for a year and now everything is falling to pieces.

After another missed toss, Kageyama lets out a growl and stomps off to grab his water bottle.

Shoyo braces his hands on his knees and bends over, breathing harshly. He feels like smashing something.

“I’m having a thought,” Sugawara says.

“Hm?” Shoyo looks up.

Just as the day before, Sugawara and Tanaka have stayed behind to supervise Shoyo and Kageyama. Tanaka has mostly been collecting the missed tosses and serving them up for Kageyama’s next set, while Sugawara has been taking notes.

Shoyo likes Sugawara. He’s nice, if a bit too easygoing.

“Kageyama, come here,” says Sugawara, and Kageyama trots over, still holding his water bottle. “I’m having a thought about this.”

“What’s that?” Kageyama asks.

“Well, it’s like this,” Sugawara starts. “Kageyama, you’ve got a really good sense for where the ball is going to come down, don’t you? If Tanaka sends a set your way that’s a little off, you can readjust no problem.”

Kageyama nods.

“So, why can’t you do the same thing with Hinata?”

Both Shoyo and Kageyama blink.

“I can’t readjust Hinata,” Kageyama says.

Shoyo has a mental image of Kageyama trying to set _him_ instead of the ball and has to press his lips together to keep from snickering.

But Sugawara is shaking his head. “I mean your placement—your _timing._ Shouldn’t you be able to time your toss to match up with him, instead of the other way around? Because it seems to me, watching Hinata try to match up the timing with your toss…you’re slowing him down.”

“What?” Shoyo hears himself and Kageyama say together. They exchange a look.

Kageyama, being the slow one? Judging from the crumpled frown on Kageyama’s face, he’s just as stumped as Shoyo by Sugawara’s assessment.

“You have that kind of awareness,” says Sugawara, “so why can’t you see where your teammates are on the court? I think you can do it.”

After a few seconds of glaring at nobody in particular, Kageyama grips his water bottle tight and stares at Shoyo. It’s hard to tell, but Shoyo can almost see the wheels turning for the setter.

“How high can you jump?” he asks abruptly.

Shoyo shrugs. “We do jump measurements next week, right?”

“Show me how high you can jump,” insists Kageyama as he puts his water bottle down by Sugawara’s feet and runs over to the net.

“…Sure.”

Shoyo gets into position as well, and then he takes off, jumping as high as he can and landing by the net. He’s not sure if it’s a good spiking form, but he went high, and he went fast.

Kageyama waves over at Tanaka. “Toss me a quick.”

“Gotcha.”

So Shoyo gets into position again, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. He dashes forward and jumps and waits for the spike—

_Wham!_

Shoyo falls to the ground and clutches the side of his head with a groan, a faint ringing in his ear.

“Hinata!”

“Shrimpy!”

“I’m fine,” Shoyo says. His eyes are watering a little from the impact, but he can make out Sugawara and Tanaka crowding around him. Tanaka helps to pull him to his feet.

“Oi, Kageyama!” Tanaka snaps. “What the hell was that?”

“I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s okay,” says Shoyo. “We’ll just try it again.”

“That ball was going really fast,” Sugawara says concernedly. Shoyo blinks, and he can make out the third year’s pinched eyebrows and narrowed eyes. “You might want to take a few minutes.”

Shoyo shakes his head. “I’m okay,” he tells Sugawara—tells all three of them. “I used to hit myself a lot worse than that when I was practicing on my own.”

“That’s not good, shrimpy,” Tanaka tells him.

He looks over to Kageyama. “Was it the timing? Were you too early?”

“…Yeah.”

“We’ll try it again,” Shoyo repeats.

And they try it, again and again and again, but it doesn’t work, and Shoyo feels like _screaming,_ he’s wanted to hit this toss for so long, he’s been waiting and waiting for it, how come he can’t reach it—

“Oy,” Kageyama growls after yet another failed attempt, “you’re wasting time looking for the ball. It’ll be there! Just hit it!”

 _Easy for you to say,_ Shoyo thinks, but he won’t say it out loud.

They were failing before because of Kageyama’s timing. They’re failing now because of Shoyo. He refuses, _refuses_ to make something of it, won’t say anything.

He walks back to the line and prepares himself for another run forward.

 _Don’t look at the ball, huh,_ Shoyo thinks. Sort of a ridiculous request, but then again, Kageyama is an incredibly ridiculous person. Shoyo is starting to understand why his teammates at Kitagawa Daiichi were so fed up with Kageyama. It’s not just to “King’s Toss” but his entire personality. But, well, Shoyo really wants to hit that toss.

The problem with not looking at the ball is that it’s instinct. He’s spent three years learning to look for the ball, to follow the positioning and pay attention to where the setter is hitting. Not looking isn’t possible…unless…

Huh.

Might as well give it a try.

For the next run up, Shoyo goes at full speed, jumps as high as he can, and squeezes his eyes shut.

When he spikes, the ball hits the center of his hand. He hears it smack to the floor and opens his eyes to see the ball bouncing away on the other side of the net.

Wordlessly, Shoyo lands. He stares at the palm of his right hand, which is red and stinging, and then at the ball, and then at Kageyama.

Shoyo knows that whatever expression on his face is perfectly mirrored on Kageyama’s. They look at each other, and it almost seems like Kageyama is smiling—so much as he _can_ smile—and Shoyo feels something balloon in his chest.

This.

 _This_ is what he’s been waiting for ever since he first saw Kageyama. This is…this is…

“Yes!” he and Kageyama say at the same time.

“That was amazing, Hinata, Kageyama!” he hears Sugawara say, but it’s outside noise because right here, right now, there is only Kageyama and the ball and the net and _this feeling_ in him that’s beyond happiness or satisfaction.

And Shoyo wonders again if this is what being in love feels like.

*

By the time the Saturday three-on-three comes around, Kageyama and Shoyo have roughly a 75% success rate, and Kageyama’s stopped sending balls into Shoyo’s face. So that’s something, at least.

When Shoyo arrives at school, he hooks his bike to the bike rack and locks it before taking off at a jog for the gym. He hears something behind him and sees Kageyama running full speed in his direction, and it’s like some primal instinct starts screaming inside his head that won’t allow him to lose.

They end up racing to the gym and collapse in a panting heap on the steps.

“I won,” Kageyama forces out.

Shoyo looks over at him and smiles.

“Guess what,” he says.

“What?”

“Today, _we’re_ going to win.”

Kageyama frowns at him for a moment, and then he grins. It looks a little sinister, but more importantly, it looks like a promise.

“Excuse us.”

Shoyo starts and looks up.

Tadashi and Tsukishima are standing at the base of the steps, staring down at them. The sun is behind their heads so Shoyo has to squint to look at them, and he can’t see their expressions. But if he’s going to judge from Tsukishima’s tone, at least one of them is not happy.

“Sorry,” Shoyo says as he rolls out of the way. Kageyama merely grunts.

Tsukishima continues to stare down at Shoyo even as Tadashi enters the gym. Shoyo squints and puts a hand over his eyes to block the sun, but it’s no good. He still can’t see Tsukishima’s expression.

Finally, with a dismissive “tsk!” Tsukishima moves past them to follow Tadashi.

“Your friend sucks,” Kageyama says.

“Don’t say that,” snaps Shoyo.

Kageyama stands up and brushes at his clothes. “Why? He does.”

“Yeah, but—” Shoyo leaps to his feet. “You know. He’s my friend. Don’t talk about him like that, okay?”

 _Only I can do that,_ he adds silently.

Shoyo turns to head into the gym as well—and then he freezes as an exceptionally pretty girl with glasses steps into the doorway and peers at him and Kageyama curiously.

“Are you two alright?” she asks in a quiet voice.

For the life of him, Shoyo can’t remember how words work.

“We— _ah_ —race—did— _fine_ —sorry,” he hears himself say, and his entire face erupts into flames. Even his ears are burning. There’s a beauty mark near the girl’s mouth, which puckers in concern, and Shoyo can feel his pulse doing sprints without him.

“Okay,” she says gently, and turns around.

Shoyo watches her enter the gym again and he sinks into a crouch, gripping his hair. He makes a groan that only slightly covers how humiliated and stupid he feels.

If, at any point, Shoyo had ever questioned his attraction to girls, he’s completely put those questions to rest. That girl is so pretty—no, not pretty. Beautiful. Mature and beautiful.

Crap. Crap!

He definitely didn’t have this reaction to Matsukawa. Sure, Matsukawa is pretty, but this girl just sent Shoyo into cardiac arrest and he’s pretty sure words are still out of reach.

“What the heck was that?” he hears Kageyama ask him.

*

They do win the three-on-three, and with straight sets.

At Sugawara’s suggestion, their team worked off a strategy that used Shoyo and Kageyama’s super quick sets as a decoy tactic, allowing both Shoyo and Tanaka to rack up the points. Despite Tsukishima’s best efforts (and skill as a blocker), there’s no way to guard against their quick.

So, the game goes smoothly—except for the first time Shoyo and Kageyama use their quick, and the rest of the volleyball club has something to say. The beautiful girl (whose name, Shoyo learns from a pitbull-like Tanaka, is Kiyoko Shimizu, and she’s the club manager) actually drops her clipboard and flushes as she retrieves it from the floor.

Sawamura, though, is the only one who doesn’t make a comment about the speed of the quick.

“Oy!” he says, pointing at Shoyo with his mouth hanging slightly open, “you had your eyes closed the whole time!”

“What?” Kageyama, Tanaka, and Sugawara all say together.

Shoyo shrugs under their scrunity. “It’s the only way I could hit it,” he says.

Kageyama tries to strangle him, and Tanaka ends up hauling the setter away.

Other than that, the only pause in the match is between sets, and after they win the second set Tanaka takes off his shirt and swings it over his head like a lasso. The other second years razz him but Shoyo thinks it’s a pretty cool move.

Tadashi steps under the net and babbles about how amazing the super quick is, which makes Shoyo blush and grin, rubbing the back of his neck. Sugawara and a second year named Ennoshita make their way over to say much of the same thing.

He’s not used to this.

It’s completely different than the pick-up games he played for most of the last year. Shoyo managed to get good plays in because of his speed and his jumps, but he’d never been a _weapon_ before. Just playing on an actual court, on an actual team, is a dream. Being a lynchpin in a game strategy like he’d been today is…he doesn’t know how to describe it.

Halfway through a sentence as he’s speaking to Sugawara, Shoyo glances over at Tsukishima. He tenses up and almost loses track of what he’s saying.

Tsukishima is drinking from his water bottle, looking pointedly away from Kageyama. His eyes meet Shoyo’s for a half-second before he deliberately turns away from Shoyo as well.

That’s not what makes Shoyo tense up, though.

It’s been a while since Shoyo has seen that expression on Tsukishima’s face. That blank despair that Shoyo saw all the time their first year of junior high.

He looks to Tadashi, who stares wide-eyed at him, and Shoyo knows his friend has seen the same thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies! That took a bit longer to write than usual...I spent a lot of the chapter rehashing canon and it was a challenge to work that all in without making it identical. Things will start to deviate more going forward, promise. And I'll try to post the next chapter a little faster, but on the other hand (good news), I'm working on a couple more tsukihina fics...I'll let y'all know when those are up!
> 
> /This chapter is sponsored by Zella Day's Kicker album :)/
> 
> Edit: my dudes, I have no earthly idea how to put a hyperlink in this note box. Is it because I'm using Chrome? Whatever. Come talk to me! https://gibberishism.tumblr.com/ AKA y'all are making super great comments that warm my heart and I, a narcissist, would love if you chatted with me on a platform I'm comfortable with ;)


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha, whoops, five (5) separate drafts and two months later...my apologies for the delay!

“Decoy?”

Sawamura and Kageyama both nod at him.

Shoyo begins to lean back before he remembers there’s nothing behind him but air. He jolts upright again and peers once more at the sheet Sawamura passed him.

Hinata Shoyo, MB. Right there next to Kageyama Tobio, S.

Middle blocker.

“Middle blocker?” he says.

“It’s genius,” Kageyama says with a wicked glint in his eyes. “The other team is going to take one look at you and think you’ll be easy meat. Then we’ll pull our quick and they won’t know what hit them.”

Shoyo blinks. “Won’t they stop being surprised by that?” he points out.

“That’s when they’ll start paying attention to you, and you’ll be our decoy.”

It… _sounds_ smart, which makes Shoyo think that Kageyama didn’t come up by this himself. That, or Kageyama’s intelligence only comes out to play volleyball. He looks to Sawamura, who is nodding with quiet assurance.

Sawamura definitely helped with this.

Shoyo stares at the sheet. Below his name is Tsukishima Kei, MB. He holds himself back from touching the name on the piece of paper like some dork.

He hasn’t talked to Tsukishima in three days. He’s been meaning to, but Kageyama has taken up all his time with practicing their new quick. Tadashi promised to talk with him after the three-on-three but Shoyo knows that when it comes to actually confronting Tsukishima, Tadashi often falls short.

The last three days have been incredibly busy, too. Only minutes after the three-on-three ended, their faculty advisor had come tripping through the gym door to announce he’d secured a practice game for them against Aoba Jousai. Weirdly, the elite school’s only condition had been for Kageyama to play as regular setter during the entire match.

And that means Shoyo will be a starting member for the entire match, too.

Shoyo’s barely been able to contain his excitement. His sheer joy at playing a real match against another team—practice or no—has overwritten everything else. School, home, even Tsukishima, it’s all been shoved aside in favor of more training, more practice, more Kageyama.

But he’d kind of assumed he’d be a wing spiker.

“Middle blocker?” he says, again, just to make sure.

Kageyama rolls his eyes and mutters, “Dumbass.”

“I have complete confidence in you, Hinata,” says Sawamura. He stands up, and addresses the rest of the team. “So, now that we have our starting rotation, let’s get as much practice in as we can.”

When Shoyo gets to his feet and looks over his shoulder, he sees Tsukishima turning away from him.

*

“I know something’s bothering him,” Shoyo says to Tadashi that evening, as Tadashi walks with Shoyo toward Tadashi’s house. His bike is back at school; Shoyo plans to get up early the next morning and practice with Kageyama for a couple of hours before school starts.

“I think…” Tadashi sighs. “I think it has to do with his brother? Since we’ve just started at Karasuno.”

Shoyo really, _really_ wants to ask exactly what that means. It’s been bugging him for over a year now. But that’s for Tsukishima to tell, not Tadashi.

“Did you ask him about it?” Shoyo says instead.

“I tried.”

“Really tried?”

“Yeah, he ignored me and changed the subject.”

Shoyo kicks at a loose stone in his path. “Hey,” he starts, switching to another subject that’s been roiling in his gut all afternoon, “do you…is it okay that I’m a middle blocker?”

“Huh? Yeah!”

“You sure?”

Tadashi takes a large step forward, so that he’s meeting Shoyo’s eyes when he looks down at him. “What’s the problem with it?” he asks.

“B-because you’re a middle blocker…and you didn’t make starting member…”

Tadashi stands upright again, and he stops walking. Shoyo turns to face him.

“You’ve worked really hard for this,” Tadashi says, slowly and clearly. Shoyo shuffles his feet. “You spent the last three years pushing yourself so hard so that you could come to Karasuno and be a starting member. I’m really happy for you, Shoyo.”

“Really?” Shoyo says quietly.

“I mean…” Tadashi shrugs. “It kind of sucks that I’m the only first year who’s not a starting member, but we’re only first years, so…you should look out, because if you don’t work hard I’ll take your spot from you!”

Shoyo grins. If Tadashi had said anything else, Shoyo thinks it may have felt hollow. But the promise of future competition is as much reassurance as it is challenge.

*

The first thing Shoyo notices about the gym at Aoba Jousai is the sheer size of it.

When the team steps through the double doors, Shoyo pauses and scans the multiple courts, the second-level stands, and the high ceiling lights.

This is a school that values its volleyball team. Everything about this giant gym screams “money!” at the top of its shiny, polished lungs. Beyond that, the number of people in the club and the three (three!) coaches of different ages dwarf their ten-man team.

A trickle of envy makes its way into Shoyo’s stomach.

He looks up at Kageyama, where the setter stands at his left, and tries to parse out the type of frown he’s wearing. By all rights, Kageyama should have gone to this school. Most people from Kitagawa Daiichi do. In fact, out of the corner of his eye Shoyo sees that familiar radish-shaped head coming toward them.

“Kageyama,” radish-head says.

“Kindaichi,” Kageyama replies calmly.

Shoyo whips his head back and forth between the two taller players. He can feel the same bad energy that was present during the InterMiddle all over again, and this time he’s got a front-row seat.

“It’s been a while,” says Kindaichi. “I’ve been wondering what sort of reign the king has going on over at Karasuno.”

Kageyama stiffens, but doesn’t reply. Shoyo can’t help but be impressed with his restraint. Actually, now that Shoyo’s noticing it, Kageyama isn’t paying full attention to Kindaichi. Instead he’s scanning the gym as though he’s looking for someone.

Kindaichi takes a step back—and for the first time, notices Shoyo. His eyes pass over him once, twice, and then move on.

Shoyo does his best not to be insulted.

“I guess you’ll get to see what we can do with a setter who knows how to play on a team,” Kindaichi shoots at Kageyama, before walking off, every part of him oozing victory as he leaves.

“Friend of yours?” Sawamura asks Kageyama.

Kageyama shrugs. “We were on the same team in middle school. Not friends.”

“He kind of hates you, doesn’t he?” Tanaka says slyly.

If nothing else, that breaks the tense mood that’s been creeping over their small team and Takeda. Kageyama immediately starts snarling at Tanaka, and the second years all chime in with crowing support for one or the other.

Shoyo breaks off from the growing chaos and heads over to where Tsukishima and Tadashi are already depositing their bags next to the chairs set up on the closest side of the court.

“…over for a night,” he hears Tadashi saying.

“I don’t see what the problem is,” Tsukishima replies.

Shoyo stiffens. “Uh,” he interrupts cautiously.

Even now— _even now,_ and he _hates_ it—Shoyo feels like a persistent third wheel in Tadashi and Tsukishima’s friendship. Like he’s always intruding on them.

Tadashi whips his head around and gives Shoyo a strained smile. “Hey…” he says. “Um.”

Tsukishima snorts with casual derision. It feels like Shoyo’s just been slapped in the face. He takes a step back, and for the first time in a week, Tsukishima looks at him.

He’s completely inscrutable.

“I asked Yamaguchi to come stay over tonight,” Tsukishima says. “I’d ask you, too, but you’re probably going to spend the rest of your day with your new best friend, aren’t you.”

“Tsukki, come on,” Tadashi says.

Tsukishima walks toward Sawamura, who is currently standing with Takeda as they speak to two of Aoba Jousai’s coaches.

Shoyo looks up at Tadashi, who gestures helplessly. “I don’t know,” he says, which is completely redundant, because his entire being is radiating those words already.

“He’s such a jerk sometimes,” Shoyo mutters, and does his best to shake off the knot that’s forming in his stomach.

*

They end up winning the game with straight sets, although Aoba Jousai chases them past deuce both sets. It’s sort of incredible.

Their strategy of taking Seijou by surprise with Shoyo’s height and the super quick pays off, and Shoyo finds himself swinging out to hit empty air more than a few times. At first it’s embarrassing but after Tanaka spikes the ball into a completely unguarded spot on the court thanks to him, Shoyo gets a completely different type of adrenaline rush he could soon get used to.

Despite the fact that they won, however, Kageyama doesn’t seem too satisfied. He’s still looking around the gym with narrowed eyes.

Shoyo is about to go over to him when Kageyama reaches out and tugs on Kindaichi’s shirt.

“Where’s Oikawa-san?” he barks.

Kindaichi looks ready to murder someone. “Sprained his ankle,” he says through gritted teeth, and tugs his shirt out of Kageyama’s grip. “Don’t get cocky, Your Majesty. We’ll beat you at Preliminaries.”

Shoyo vaguely recognizes the name.

He has to think back, but it’s connected to Ushijima Wakatoshi somehow…and he remembers. Miura had said that name a few times when he spoke about trying for Aoba Jousai. According to Miura, he and Ushijima are rivals.

Is Oikawa some sort of god for setters? First Miura, now Kageyama. Shoyo wonders if he should look this person up.

As it turns out, he doesn’t have to.

When the team returns to the bus Takeda drove them in, a lanky figure in the Seijou school uniform is leaning casually against the school gate. He waves at them with a cheerful, plastic smile.

“I heard you guys won today,” he says, and stands up straight. He’s really tall.

Shoyo is walking next to Tadashi, and when the entire team stops (save for Takeda, who continues on to the bus), Shoyo is half a step behind his friend.

“Oikawa-san,” he hears Kageyama say. He doesn’t sound happy, but that’s normal.

“Ya ho, Tobio-chan,” he says.

Three things are immediately apparent. First, Oikawa talks in a sing-song, obnoxious manner that is almost certainly meant to annoy people. Second, he’s unfairly good looking, and Shoyo can’t help the way his tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth. Third, he is, like Kageyama, a giant asshole.

“Oikawa,” Sawamura says, and smoothly places himself between the two setters. “Sorry we didn’t see you on the court today.”

Oikawa smiles widely. “It’ll just make things more fun if we face each other during preliminaries. Besides, when I crush my cute kohai, I want a larger audience.”

_Asshole._

True to form, Kageyama starts snarling, but Sawamura puts out a hand.

“I guess we’ll just have to wait until then,” he tells Oikawa, pleasant as ever.

*

Shoyo goes home that night and spends a couple hours writhing in his bed, irritated and restless and utterly unable to figure out _why._ Finally, when his bed sheets become too hot from all his tossing and turning, he gets up and walks to the kitchen, phone in hand.

After two glasses of water, he feels a little less heated but still frustrated. He puts his phone on the kitchen counter and stares at it with narrowed eyes.

There’s a full moon out. It’s bright enough that Shoyo hadn’t bothered turning on the kitchen lights. This way he won’t wake up his family. Natsu has reached the age where, if she’s annoyed at Shoyo, she will not hesitate to let him know, and Shoyo can only take being told to shut up by his cute little sister so many times.

He heaves out a deep, quiet sigh.

Shoyo picks up his phone again without thinking about it and flips it open. His contact list stares up at him in blinding LED clarity.

He snaps the phone closed, opens it again, snaps it closed with more force—and then stomps over to the back door. He slides it open, steps outside, and slams it closed behind him. He sits down on the edge of the deck and stares out at the wood expanse that is his “back yard.”

He opens his phone again and selects the name he keeps staring at.

The phone rings three times before Shoyo hears the hoarse, “hello?” from the tiny speaker by his ear.

“Is Tadashi there?” he blurts out.

“…Huh? Yeah, he’s asleep,” Tsukishima says. He adds in a voice a half-octave lower, “so was I.”

“You’re a jerk,” Shoyo says before he can think about it. “You’re the biggest jerk. An asshole. A giant, stupid… _dumbass._ ” He cringes at that last one, mentally cursing out Kageyama’s vocabulary of one for limiting his own. That’s the only word he can even think of now.

“Excuse me?”

“I hate you,” Shoyo goes on, and he can’t stop himself. “I really, _really_ hate you. You’re mean and petty and…and _mean,_ and you laugh at people when they’re having a hard time, and you push people away, and…and…”

“What the hell is this?” Tsukishima demands. He sounds a little more awake now. Distantly, Shoyo hears a door clicking shut on the other end of the phone call.

“You’re a jerk,” Shoyo says again.

“And you’re calling me at one-thirty in the morning to tell me this?”

Shoyo pulls the phone away. His phone’s screen says, in the top corner, 01:32. He flushes and presses the speaker back to his ear. “Yeah, I am,” he says a little desperately. “Got a problem with that?”

“Yeah. I was _sleeping._ ”

“Well, you’re a jerk, so I don’t feel bad about waking you up.”

“Seriously, what the hell is this?”

“Why didn’t you want me to come over?” Shoyo snaps, and something in him releases at that moment. He ignores the sting at the back of his eyes. “Are we back to not being friends or something? Do you hate me again?”

“What?”

“Jerk!”

“Wait, what?” Tsukishima hisses. “You’re asking me that? You’re the one who told me to stay away from _you._ ” The ‘s’s are sharp and buzzing in Shoyo’s ear.

“I did not!”

“You did! You said to leave you and your _precious_ Kageyama alone.”

“Not like that!” Hinata says, and checks his volume. “I just meant while I got him to work with me,” he mutters much more quietly.

Tsukishima blows out a huge breath. “Whatever.”

“And you’re still a jerk.”

“What the— _why?_ ”

“Because you know I feel like an outsider when it comes to you and Tadashi!” Shoyo wipes at his damp eyelashes. “I know you know! You’ve gone out of your way to be nice about it before, so…so…so now you’re an extra big jerk for rubbing it in my face like that!”

“Oh, _you_ feel left out?” Tsukishima snaps back. “You’ve been calling Yamaguchi by his first name ever since our first year of junior high! You stay over at his house almost every week! But _you’re_ the one who’s an outsider?”

“You could call him by his first name too! You could call me by my first name! You’re the one who won’t do it.”

“I said you could call me by my first name and you got weird about it, so you can’t get mad at me for that!” says Tsukishima.

“I didn’t—I didn’t get weird about it! What the heck?”

“You did!”

Shoyo lies back onto the deck and covers his face with his free hand.

Crap.

How much had Tsukishima picked up during junior high? The tiny part of him that’s still in the long process of getting over his crush is screaming in embarrassment, and the way his entire body feels flushed and humiliated only makes Shoyo more irritable.

“That’s not the _point,_ ” he says. “You were a jerk today.”

“I thought you’d be with Kageyama,” says Tsukishima, “since that’s all you do these days.”

“What the—”

“You got what you wanted, so why even bother pretending you’re friends with us now? Just go off with your setter and be gross volleyball freaks together, what do I care?”

Shoyo is about to continue arguing, but at the last second he catches himself.

Somehow, he’s forgotten that Tsukishima isn’t good at friendships. His voice sounds so raw on the phone that Shoyo schools himself, checks his still bubbling temper, and thinks before he speaks next.

“You’re my best friend,” he says. “You and Tadashi. So. Kageyama doesn’t change anything.”

It’s silent on the other end.

Shoyo clears his throat. “We’ve talked about this before,” he says. “Do you not believe me or something?”

“Well, weren’t you the one in love with him back in junior high?”

“I wasn’t _in love with him,_ you ass,” says Shoyo, irritated all over again. “I wanted to play volleyball with him. It’s totally different.”

“Not for you, it isn’t.”

“Yes, it is! Besides, I didn’t even know him back then.”

“So you’re in love with him _now?_ ”

“No, I—” Shoyo blows out a hot breath of air. The knot that started forming before the practice match begins wriggling and tying itself into something even more complex.

Truth be told, he doesn’t know what he feels for Kageyama. He can at least rule out physical attraction—he’s seen Kageyama shirtless by now, and it’s done nothing for him. No fixation on features like it had been with Tsukishima. All the same Shoyo’s chest is full of _something_ when he’s with Kageyama, and he’s never felt its equal before.

He rubs his hand over his face again. “Are you asking about that because you don’t want to be friends with me if I like another guy?” he asks quietly.

Silence again.

The knot writhes and grows again. Then:

“Don’t be an idiot.”

Shoyo lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. His limbs are trembling, and he has to scrub at his eyes again.

“Right,” he says.

“Sorry I didn’t invite you tonight.”

“Sorry I called you at one-thirty.”

“No, you’re not.”

“No,” Shoyo agrees, “I’m not. Jerk.”

“Idiot.”

*

The next week sees a lot of changes in the Karasuno men’s volleyball team.

That next Monday, Shoyo meets the team’s previously absent libero.

Finding out that Karasuno actually had a libero had been a welcome surprise in of itself—Sawamura had told the first years after the practice match with Seijou—but Shoyo can’t hold back his excitement when he realizes that very same libero is the one from Chidoriyama Middle.

Nishinoya (or “Noya-san” as Tanaka calls him) is ridiculously loud and cool. Shoyo kind of forgets to speak when he sees Nishinoya fly into the gym and pick up Kageyama’s jump serve with a perfect receive. He gets even more excited when he stands in front of Nishinoya and discovers he’s the taller of the two.

Nishinoya stands straight-backed and proud, projecting his voice across the gym just in case his words aren’t ringing in someone’s ears. He has a streak of dyed hair like Zayn from One Direction and slicks his hair back. He grins wide when Shoyo praises his middle school career. He delightedly chases after Shimizu and takes a slap from her like a badge of honor.

And when Nishinoya learns that someone named Asahi isn’t in the club, his entire mood switches from elation to rage in a split second. He storms out of the gym, and in his wake, Shoyo learns from Sawamura that Asahi is their team’s absent ace. He also learns, more from the senpais’ body language than anything they say, that Nishinoya and this Asahi had a falling out.

The next couple of days involve Shoyo dragging Kageyama around as he singlehandedly tries to fix this problem. He meets Asahi (finding out with some embarrassment that his family name is actually Azumane) and practically begs the giant third year to come back to the team, and begs the same of Nishinoya.

Shoyo has waited over three years to get onto this team, and there’s no way he’ll just sit back and let two important players resign from volleyball club.

“How is it any of your business?” Tsukishima asks him after practice the second day.

With no good answer, Shoyo just shrugs and tugs off his sweaty t-shirt. He feels Tsukishima’s eyes lingering on him, waiting for a reply, but he can’t put it into words.

Thankfully he doesn’t need to verbalize his thoughts with Kageyama. The other boy just _gets_ it. Even being surrounded by volleyball freaks like Miura and Terada, Shoyo has never met anyone who lives and breathes volleyball the way Shoyo does until Kageyama came along.

In the middle of that mess, Takeda announces that he’s organized a practice match for them against Nekoma High from Tokyo, their school’s apparent longtime rival, on the last day of Golden Week training camp. Shoyo hadn’t fully grasped that the team would be away from home for six days and it’s almost too much to process.

And then, as though all that wasn’t enough, Takeda brings the blond guy from Sakanoshita Snack Shop and announces he’ll be their coach leading up to the Nekoma game. And by coincidence, he’s the grandson of Coach Ukai, who coached Karasuno all the way to Nationals in the past.

“Don’t you think this is an weirdly busy week?” Shoyo asks Kageyama after Karasuno finishes their game with Ukai’s neighborhood team of adults. “I mean, nothing this exciting ever happened back in junior high, and this is all at once.”

Kageyama frowns. “I guess.”

After all that, both Azumane and Nishinoya officially return to club practices and reintegrate themselves into the starting line-up—such as it is, since their temporary coach has yet to announce the rotation they’ll be using for the Nekoma game.

*

During the lead up to their Golden Week training camp, Shoyo is struck by a revelation: he’s part of a team.

It’s not at all like junior high, which always felt like Shoyo was in a club on the periphery of a team. Shoyo is in the middle. He’s part of the practice, and the jokes, and drills. He’s not shunted off to the side. He belongs here.

He carries that particular revelation with him all the way home and stares up at his ceiling when he should be sleeping, an uncontrollable grin stretching across his face. He can’t ever remember feeling this happy before.

Shoyo kicks his legs into the air, the bed springs creaking under him, until Natsu slams his door open and shouts at him to shut up in her authoritative, seven-year-old voice.

*

Spending all his time on volleyball for almost a month straight is pretty incredible, but when Shoyo gets his first test back and finds himself passing only by a point he immediately breaks out into a cold sweat.

His first thought was of how his mother would kill him if he started failing again. His second thought was that Tsukishima would probably kill him first.

That day at lunch, instead of meeting Kageyama in the gym, Shoyo makes his way to Tsukishima’s classroom.

Shoyo half-expects to see Tadashi sitting in the desk in front of Tsukishima’s.

Instead, Tsukishima is alone, his clunky headphones covering his ears and his focus solely on the bento box before him. He eats with methodical precision.

For a second Shoyo forgets how to breathe.

He’s forgotten, in past few months, how good looking Tsukishima is. Maybe his feelings have changed, but once again that dying crush rears its head. The taper of Tsukishima’s fingers, the pink of his lips…all of it. It’s stupidly attractive.

With one glance at a group of girls on the other side of the classroom Shoyo knows he’s not the only one to pick up on this. They’re more or less minding their business but Shoyo catches them eyeing his friend and giggling behind their hands. One of the girls’ cheeks is flushed a pretty pink.

Shoyo almost forgot the way people who don’t know Tsukishima react to him.

He forces himself to relax before entering the classroom and crossing over to Tsukishima’s side of the room. He sits straddled across the chair in front of Tsukishima, facing the other boy, and reaches up to pull the headphones off of Tsukishima’s ears.

He immediately receives an irritated glare behind those black-framed glasses.

“Hey,” says Shoyo.

Tsukishima reaches for his headphones and hangs them around his neck.

“Don’t do that,” he says by way of greeting.

Shoyo points at a veggie roll. “Can I have that?” he says.

“What are you, a starving child?”

Shoyo pushes his eyebrows together in what he hopes is a cute, begging expression, and Tsukishima sighs before grabbing the veggie roll with his chopsticks and holding it out for Shoyo.

He’s tempted to reach out and bite it instead of taking it with his fingers, but…it’s a little much, he decides.

More than anything else, he just came out to Tsukishima. Not in so many words, but Shoyo knows there was no room for interpretation in that moment. He doesn’t want his friend to think Shoyo will come after him like he’s a target.

Shoyo doesn’t want to be like Itagaki.

So he takes the veggie roll, devours it in one messy bite, and grins past his full mouth up at Tsukishima.

“You’re disgusting sometimes,” Tsukishima tells him.

Shoyo swallows. “Have I mentioned you’re my best friend?”

“Is that a thank you or are you about to ask me for a favor?”

“Both.”

Tsukishima clicks his tongue before holding out his hand. “Give it.”

“I didn’t bring it with me!”

“You failed a test and come crawling to me for help, and you don’t even bring the test?”

Shoyo smiles a little helplessly.

“You…” Tsukishima rubs at his forehead before heaving a deep sigh. “ _Fine._ We’ll meet at Yamaguchi’s today after practice. He asked for my help with English, too.”

“Best friend ever.”

“Oh, shut up.”

Shoyo reaches into his pocket and pulls out the carton of strawberry milk he bought before making his way over here. He puts it down in front of Tsukishima.

A faint tinge of pink brushes the tips of Tsukishima’s ears. Shoyo takes that as his thanks and leaves the classroom. Out of the corner of his eye he spots the group of girls again. The girl who’d been blushing before is now openly staring at Tsukishima.

Something twists in Shoyo that he chooses to ignore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Aaaaand it's shorter, too. Whoops, again. Anyway, if anyone wants to come yell at me I've made a side tumblr and love talking with people...please be advised: excessive punctuation will be in use!!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Je suis garbage! Okay, fingers crossed that I will not be such an abominable failure at posting new chapters going forward. Or replying to comments. (Or in general!!) I'm worried the middle of this chapter might be a little boring so my apologies in advance!

The first time Shoyo touched a volleyball he made it fly right into his face from a bad receive.

It was two weeks after he’d seen the Small Giant play on a small television set as he rode his bike through town. Shoyo had kept the image in his mind, unable to shake it and unwilling to try. His entire being had been overcome with hunger.

His father was home. Natsu was still a baby, and his dad came home from work earlier to see his new baby girl. After two weeks of nagging, Shoyo’s father finally agreed to play volleyball with his son. He’d gone out and bought a brand new volleyball and gave the internet a passing glance for the rules.

Shoyo wouldn’t learn all this until much later. He only knew that his father brought him a volleyball and they set themselves up in the backyard, and two minutes later they were back in the kitchen as Shoyo’s mother tended to his bloody nose and his father pled his innocence while laughing in short, restrained bursts that only upset Shoyo’s mother even more.

If Shoyo had been made of anything else maybe he would have given up on volleyball after that. He was talented at soccer. He had good times for track and field.

But Shoyo wanted to play volleyball, and even his blood-splattered reflection in the mirror couldn’t take away from the hunger that burned in him.

Trying to explain that hunger was another matter entirely.

*

Shoyo practically short-circuits when he walks into the kitchen on the first night of their training camp and sees Shimizu wearing a pink apron with her hair tied up. There’s something about that visual that tugs at a weird domestic fantasy Shoyo didn’t know he even had.

At least he’s not alone. Tanaka and Noya, both collapsed moments before after learning Shimizu wouldn’t be staying on the property overnights, had miraculously returned to life with stars and hearts in their eyes.

Honestly, Shoyo is in awe of those two for being able to look directly at Shimizu and not combust. He’s not reached that level yet.

“I don’t really get it,” Tadashi confesses as they lay out their futons later that night.

Tadashi has set himself up between Tsukishima and Shoyo, and on Shoyo’s other side is Kageyama. Both Shoyo and Tadashi agreed privately beforehand that keeping those two as far away from each other was in everyone’s best interest. Shoyo is also grateful that he’s not next to Tsukishima either—he’s only just come out to Tsukishima, after all. He doesn’t want to make his friend uncomfortable.

“Do you have eyes?” Shoyo says to Tadashi. “Ki…Shimizu-senpai is like a goddess.”

“I mean, I know she’s pretty—”

“She’s _stunning._ ”

Tadashi shrugs. “You’re not wrong, but I don’t see why you, Tanaka-san, and Nishinoya-san get so worked up around her.”

Shoyo heaves a loud sigh.

“I don’t get it either,” Kageyama says from behind Shoyo.

“See?” says Tadashi, and gestures to Kageyama. “Like, I prefer girls who are small and cute.”

“I _guess,_ ” Shoyo allows, and scoots back so that he can speak to both Tadashi and Kageyama without whipping his head back and forth like watching a tennis match. “I like cute girls, too. But I’ve never seen anyone as beautiful as Shimizu-senpai.”

“She _is_ beautiful,” Tadashi admits, “but…it’s sort of like looking at a painting? She’s objectively pretty but I wouldn’t ask her out or anything.”

Shoyo opens his mouth to say he doesn’t want to date Shimizu either, mostly because the idea of it makes his entire brain start sparking and sizzling, but he closes it back up with a snap when he sees Tsukishima coming over to join them with three bottles in his arms.

“Oh, Tsukki, thank you,” says Tadashi. He says the “thank you” in English and smiles as Tsukishima passes him a sports drink.

“Here.”

Shoyo takes the bottle Tsukishima is shoving in his face, which turns out to also be a sports drink. He looks from the bottle to Tsukishima a couple of times.

“Don’t make a big deal of it,” Tsukishima mutters. “I wanted to, so I did. Get over it.”

“…Thanks, Kei-chan,” Shoyo says, doing his absolute best not to be too touched by this gesture.

“I don’t get what you said about cute girls,” Kageyama tells Tadashi.

Shoyo and Tadashi both look at him.

Kageyama has his head tilted a little to the side, and his frown is mostly comprised of puzzlement. If he noticed that Tsukishima snubbed him by not bringing him a drink, he doesn’t let on.

“Just that…I prefer cute girls?” Tadashi says slowly. His voice squeaks at the end of his sentence.

“I don’t see what the difference is,” Kageyama says. “Are cute girls better at being a team manager?”

Shoyo and Tadashi exchange a wide-eyed glance.

“That’s not what we’re talking about,” says Shoyo. “He means, like…asking a girl out? The kind of girl he would ask out. You know, if he ever managed to.”

Tadashi reaches out and hits his shoulder lightly. Shoyo punches back, grinning wickedly.

“Ask out where?”

For a second Shoyo thinks Kageyama is being deliberately difficult and stupid. Then he takes a closer look at his friend and sees the blank incomprehension in his eyes and feels like an ass for wanting to make fun of Kageyama.

He clears his throat and prepares to ask, delicately as he manage, if Kageyama prefers a gender that is _not_ girls, when the second years return from the bath and announce its availability.

Shoyo bolts up instantly and he ends up racing Kageyama to the bathroom, the topic dropped.

*

The competition begins in earnest the next morning, when Kageyama insists he’s the faster runner of the two and while Shoyo knows he can beat Kageyama in a short sprint, there’s no way he’ll let Kageyama brag about being the faster distance runner.

And damn it, he’s going to prove it.

When _he_ does prove it by being the first one to the gym (meeting a just-arrived Ukai, who is definitely shocked that someone got there so soon), Kageyama gnashes his teeth together and sets the competition curve on whatever activity they do next.

Unfortunately, this happens to be serves. Shoyo only avoids an embarrassing margin of defeat thanks to Kageyama’s still-progressing jump serve, and even then he has to endure Tanaka razzing him after a couple of particularly bad attempts.

Spike receives are a draw. Although Shoyo believes he’s better at receives, Kageyama has more experience on an actual court against actual players. He can read the trajectory of the ball better.

This makes Shoyo seek out Noya’s aid. According to Sugawara, the best way to ask Noya for help is to call him “senpai,” which not only works but gets Shoyo the promise of a popsicle later.

Here’s what Shoyo learns about the former Chidoriyama libero when they work together:

Nishinoya Yu is easily the coolest person Shoyo has ever met.

He also cannot teach anyone how to do receives to save his life.

Volleyball—or at least, receiving in volleyball—is too instinctive to Nishinoya, his body programmed to perform in a certain way that isn’t accessible to people without that same instinct. He’s a lot like Kageyama, in that neither of them can explain their process to others without an excess of onomatopoeia and wild gesticulation.

But Shoyo learns a lot from watching Nishinoya anyway. He observes the way Nishinoya chases after incoming spikes—absolutely zero wasted movements, total control over his body.

It’s really, really cool.

By the end of the day Shoyo has _almost_ forgotten about his competition with Kageyama because Nishinoya has started calling him by his first name and insists that Shoyo do the same. The most Shoyo can manage is “Noya-san” like Tanaka does, and Nishinoya laughs good-naturedly when it comes stuttering out of his mouth.

There’s a moment, as well, when Nishinoya—Noya, Shoyo reminds himself, _Noya_ —is talking about volleyball and what he loves about being a libero, and Shoyo feels that same _something_ in his chest that he felt when he first saw Kageyama in the gym his first day at school. That feeling he thought was what being in love feels like.

But Shoyo can’t be in love with more than one person in the exact same way, can he?

And as he’s falling asleep that night he also realizes that he’s felt the same thing with other members of the team, like Tanaka and Sawamura, though it was not as strong.

Either he’s in love with half of his teammates, or that feeling in him isn’t romantic at all.

That thought loosens something in him that Shoyo didn’t even notice had been all wound up, and he sleeps easily between Tadashi and Kageyama in their row of futons.

*

The competition with Kageyama resumes the next morning, when Shoyo meets Kageyama outside for a run before breakfast.

They hadn’t planned on meeting up and Kageyama’s shocked face when he sees Shoyo slipping into his running shoes is hilarious. Kageyama barely waits for Shoyo to tie his shoes before the race is on.

By the time they make it back to the lodge house, Shimizu and Takeda have already gotten to the kitchen and are preparing breakfast. Shoyo takes a quick shower before helping them with the food prep, something he’s familiar with (if not very good at) after assisting his mother when Natsu was younger and couldn’t be left alone for more than a few minutes at a time.

Shoyo has a good laugh at Kageyama’s expense when they learn how horrible he is at cooking and Takeda assigns him to setting out dishes. Kageyama snarls at him with glowing cheeks.

Taking orders from Shimizu makes it slightly easier to be in her presence without all Shoyo’s higher brain functions shutting down, although Shoyo still blushes and stammers and generally ruins the Japanese language when he speaks to her.

It’s taken a couple of years, but Shoyo can now say with certainty that he is attracted to girls and boys both. He would really like to give Itagaki a piece of his mind someday.

*

After lunch, Ukai has everyone run a circuit through the neighborhood. The route isn’t the same one Shoyo and Kageyama took in the morning but it’s about the same length, maybe a bit longer.

Shoyo is determined to make himself the clear winner against Kageyama so when he takes off at a dead sprint, he’s determined not to slow down. He hears himself yelling as his muscles start to burn in protest at the speed, propelling himself forward even just a little bit.

Behind him he hears Sawamura and Sugawara shouting for him to stop yelling, but Shoyo just keeps going.

He’s not going to lose, dammit.

And then—

Shoyo blinks and glances at the street sign he’s about to pass, realizing it isn’t one he should be seeing. He screeches to a halt and looks behind him, but there’s absolutely no one else nearby.

Crap.

He braces his hands on his knees and forces air into his lungs, which are still sharp and tight from running. Shoyo wasn’t exactly paying attention to his surroundings as he blindly raced ahead (Kageyama is totally going to give him crap for this, he just knows it), but if he turns back around he’ll be able to make it back to the lodge house without straying too far.

When he glances up from staring at the cement in thought, he sees someone in a red track suit he hadn’t spotted before.

Well, it’s more like Shoyo _hears_ that person, or at least the soft electronic explosions coming from a portable game console. He hadn’t heard that at first with the blood rushing in his ears. The person in the red track clothes is sitting down, bent over the console, and appears to not have noticed Shoyo at all.

Curiosity prompts Shoyo to walk to where that person is, and he takes in the details as he gets closer. A boy, dyed blond hair growing out at the roots, slouching shoulders under the weight of a backpack.

Before he can think, Shoyo blurts out, “Hi! What’re you doing?”

The boy starts and turns to face him. “I…I’m lost, I guess,” he says. His voice is oddly monotone, even with surprise. It reminds Shoyo of Tsukishima, and that only makes Shoyo more curious.

“Are you from around here?” he presses.

“No.”

Shoyo blinks, and when the console lets out another sound he asks, “Is that a fun game?”

“Huh? No…not really.” The boy fidgets a little, staring at his console, before adding awkwardly, “It’s…a good way to waste time, I guess.”

Shoyo crouches down and watches the boy play for a little while, getting wrapped up in the action on the tiny screen. The boy is good. Really good.

His eyes wander for a second and land on a duffel bag he hadn’t seen. It’s open and—

“Oh! You play volleyball?” he says excitedly.

“W—wha?”

“Those are volleyball shoes, aren’t they?” Shoyo says, his adrenaline levels ratcheting up once more.

He feels like he’s talking to an alternate reality version of Tsukishima. Did he run into an alternate reality? Was he running that fast—no, no, that’s stupid. But there’s something about this boy that makes Shoyo want to push and prod until he opens completely for Shoyo.

“…Yeah,” the boy says faintly.

“I’m on a volleyball team, too,” Shoyo tells him. “My name’s Hinata Shoyo!”

The boy just stares at him wide-eyed for seconds on end. Shoyo just keeps grinning widely, his palm out and open as he waits for the boy’s name.

And at last:

“…Kozume.”

“Kozume? That’s your name?”

“Kozume Kenma…”

Shoyo grins. “ _Kenma,_ ” he repeats. He likes that name. He likes saying it. “Are you in high school?”

“Mm. Yeah.”

“Me too! I’m a first year! And you?”

“Second year.”

He takes a step back. Crap. “Sorry,” Shoyo says hastily. “I’ve been running my mouth off.”

“It’s fine,” Kenma says, shrugging. “I don’t pay attention to things like seniority and stuff in sports clubs. A lot of it is just formality and it doesn’t make sense to me.”

Shoyo blinks a couple of times, inexplicably overjoyed that this perfect stranger just strung all those words together at once. He prompts Kenma to continue with a “Really?” but all he gets is silence. He consideres walking away but…

“So, um…do you like volleyball?”

“Hmm….” Kenma looks like he’s considering it, which sends a thrill up Shoyo’s spine. “It’s… _meh._ I’m just sort of doing it, I guess? I don’t hate it. But I don’t like getting tired and sweaty, it’s not fun for me. But, um, some of my friends play on the team and…I think they’d be upset if I wasn’t there.”

_You can’t quit!_

_Why not? Huh?_

_You’ll hurt Tadashi!_

“I think you’d have more fun if you learned to like volleyball,” Shoyo says, almost distantly, as his memory transposes itself over this conversation.

“I’m only playing in high school, so…”

Shoyo brings himself back to the moment, and Kenma.

He hasn’t had a proper conversation with Tsukishima yet. Their fight over the phone doesn’t count. And Shoyo’s been too hesitant to approach Tsukishima ever since then—but he can’t go around trying to unload his jumbled-up feelings onto someone completely different, no matter what the similarities might be. For that matter, he barely knows anything about Kenma at all.

“What position do you play?” he asks.

“Setter.”

Shoyo laughs before he can think better of it. “You’re totally different compared to our setter,” he says. Sugawara is cheerful and talkative, and Kageyama is…Kageyama.

“Hm.”

“I’m a middle blocker,” Shoyo offers, and then looks down at his feet. “It’s weird, though, right? I’m really short.”

Kenma shrugs. “I guess, but it doesn’t seem that weird to me. I’m clumsy and I get tired easily, so when our team plays in tournaments the other teams don’t think I belong on the court as a setter.”

Shoyo sits next to him. “Is your team any good?”

“Dunno…we used to be strong a while ago, but then we sucked. Lately, though…” Kenma looks him directly in the eye. “I think we’ve gotten pretty good.”

Another shiver runs down Shoyo’s spine.

This is that feeling again, the one he gets when he sees Kageyama on the court. That feeling deep in his chest stealing the breath from him. He wants to play volleyball with Kozume Kenma. He wants to play against Kenma.

Heart thundering, he stutters out, “What…what team—”

“Kenma!”

The shout cuts Shoyo’s words short as he and Kenma look toward the source. Shoyo sees a tall boy wearing a black shirt and red shorts standing further up the street, his hair standing on end in the worst case of bed hair Shoyo’s ever seen. The tall boy is attractive in the way a tiger is beautiful, and Shoyo hopes he never gets closer to him than he is right now.

“Kuro,” Kenma says, and gets to his feet.

Shoyo blinks as Kenma walks to the tall boy and brushes off the scolding he receives for wandering off. A sense of regret seeps into him at the sight of Kenma’s retreating back. Not even an email or phone number to reach out to Kenma.

But Kenma turns and says, “See you soon, Shoyo,” like he knows something Shoyo doesn’t.

*

Shoyo gets scolded by Ukai and Sawamura when he finally finds his way back to the gym, and he sees Tsukishima and Tadashi laughing behind their hands at him. He takes the scolding and endures his friends’ taunts with as much dignity as he can muster. Kageyama declares the run a win for himself, which a little harder to endure.

That night he tells Tadashi about meeting Kenma while they perform their assigned dish duty after dinner.

“It was like the first time I saw Kageyama,” he tries to explain, but Tadashi misunderstands.

“Do you like this Kozume Kenma?” Tadashi whispers.

Shoyo may have understood the feelings that Kageyama has inspired in him but putting that sort of thing into words is another trial entirely. He eventually convinces Tadashi that he’s not in love with Kageyama or Kenma but it takes the entirety of dish duty and brings Sugawara into their conversation for a terrifying minute. The third year is far too perceptive sometimes and it makes Shoyo panic until Sugawara moves on from them.

When they return to their futons, Tsukishima is in the middle of taunting Kageyama for what appears to be no particular reason, who takes the bait in his spectacular snarling fashion. Shoyo and Tadashi share a look before pulling them apart. Shoyo practically drags Kageyama to the baths as Tsukishima gets the last word in.

*

Ukai bans Shoyo and Kageyama from their constant competition for the rest of the week starting the next morning. Shoyo argues at first, but he’s shouted down. Later Sawamura explains that the adults are worried that one or both of them will get lost again, which would be fine if it were Shoyo, but as it turns out Kageyama is completely stupid about directions.

Once it’s explained to him properly, Shoyo is fine with it. More than fine with it, since he’s apparently better than Kageyama at something.

Shoyo spends the next two days throwing himself into practice and getting to know his senpai better. He feels a little intimidated by Azumane’s bulk and innate strength, but he’s as nice as Sugawara. When he’s on the court Azumane is incredibly cool. Off the court he reminds Shoyo of a nervous bear.

It’s a little harder to get close to the three second years who aren’t in the starting line-up. He looks at the three of them practicing as hard as everyone else and he remembers the utter frustration he felt all through junior high being in the exact same position as they are now.

He also thinks of Tsukishima, back in second year, when Yukimura had come in and taken his spot on the team for that short time. Despite all evidence that the first year had simply wanted it more, Tsukishima had been devastated and resentful. Shoyo can’t help but worry that Ennoshita, Kinoshita, and especially Narita (whose position of middle blocker has been taken by Shoyo) might resent him in the same way, and he hesitates to approach them.

The mood between them changes one night as the first and second years are laying out their futons as the third years take their showers.

“We left the team for a little while,” Ennoshita explains to Shoyo, and to Kageyama who is next to him. “It’s thanks to Daichi-san’s kindness that we were able to come back.”

This, too, reminds Shoyo of Tsukishima.

“All of us want to stand on the court,” he says, “but we’re going to earn our places. I guess…we’re not going to lose to you.”

Oh, Shoyo thinks. They’re like me.

He doesn’t want to pity them or feel sorry for them after he thinks that. If any of his teammates showed him pity back in junior high—and some of them had, now that he’s considering it—he would have hated to be around them.

Shoyo resolves to continue doing his best. Anything less would be disrespectful.

*

When they meet Nekoma to play in their fated practice match, Shoyo feels his heart leap into his throat when he recognizes one of the players—two, in fact.

“K-Kenma!” he says in some astonishment as both teams enter the public gym Takeda had booked for the day. “What are you doing here?”

“Um…” Kenma’s eyes dart around. “I play for Nekoma.”

“Seriously? Why didn’t you say so?”

“You never asked.”

“But you knew which team I was on, right? You said ‘see you soon’ when you left!”

Kenma nods to Shoyo’s chest. “Your shirt says Karasuno.”

“Ahh…” Shoyo trails off as someone looms over Kenma’s shoulder.

“Oy,” says the guy with a blonde mohawk and a glare that eerily resembles Tanaka’s, “what do you want with our setter, huh?”

As if summoned by Shoyo’s thoughts, he hears Tanaka behind him say, “Right back at you, punk! What do you want with our first year?”

Shoyo feels like sinking into the ground between the two as they face off. He’s no good at these things. Luckily Sugawara and one of the Nekoma players manage to defuse the moment with some choice cutting words, and Shoyo and Kenma slink away into the gym.

Kenma heads over to where his team is beginning their warm up with an awkward nod as his goodbye, though Shoyo thinks he sees a small smile accompany it. A warmth fills his chest, and a mounting excitement that is much more immediate than the thrill he’s been feeling ever since the practice match against Nekoma was announced.

Shoyo runs over to Tadashi, who is stretching next to Tsukishima.

“That’s him,” Shoyo says in a loud whisper, and points to Nekoma. “That’s Kozume Kenma!”

Tadashi squints. “Which one is he?”

“The setter,” says Shoyo impatiently. “The one with the pudding hair.”

“Oh. Do you think he’s any good? He looks kind of…unathletic.”

Shoyo shrugs, a grin stretching across his face. “I don’t know! But I want to find out. I can’t believe I get to play against him! Today is great!”

“What’s going on?”

Shoyo’s heart stutters. He looks up at Tsukishima, whose expression is filled with an intensity Shoyo can’t figure out. He’d forgotten to mention Kenma to Tsukishima. Or maybe he had wanted to forget. He doesn’t know if he can keep reassuring Tsukishima that he’s not getting pushed aside for the new friends Shoyo keeps making.

Before Shoyo can find the right words, Tadashi jumps in. “Shoyo met Nekoma’s setter that day he got lost running.”

Tsukishima sneers at him. “That’s right, you got lost.”

Shoyo narrows his eyes. “Shut up.”

“What’s with you and setters, anyway?” asks Tsukishima. “First you’re obsessed with Kageyama, now that shorty over there. Oh, right, and Matsukawa.”

“I—what?” Shoyo’s train of thought completely halts. He stares up at Tsukishima. “What do you mean, Matsu-chan? I was never obsessed with her.”

“Sure,” says Tsukishima, like he doesn’t believe Shoyo at all.

“I wasn’t!”

“Sure.”

Shoyo gapes at Tsukishima. He opens and closes his mouth a couple of times to explain the number of things Tsukishima has gotten wrong but Ukai begins shouting at them to get to the net and start their warm up drills. Shoyo shuts his mouth, but he looks to Tadashi, who only shrugs.

He can’t focus on what Tsukishima thinks right now. Even if he could, there’s so much that Shoyo has to pick apart that he doesn’t know where to start.

Right now, though, Shoyo has to focus on the practice match ahead of him, and the way Kenma’s eyes seem to be swallowing every little detail about their team.

*

Eight sets later, Karasuno finally concedes defeat.

Well, Shoyo doesn’t, but Ukai yells at him to stop demanding more matches and every other player is on the ground in exhaustion, so he grudgingly gives up.

They didn’t win a single set.

Nekoma is an incredibly balanced team, and Shoyo hadn’t realized until playing them how much Karasuno has been focusing on offense. Not that he minds being an offensive player, having spent so much time practicing his receives these last three years. The variety is nice.

For most of the sets Shoyo’s super quick with Kageyama was up against a middle blocker who chased it down with dogged determination, eventually catching it toward the end of the second set. Kageyama had thrown Shoyo some normal quicks to keep the tall blocker guessing but after a while he’d gotten used to Shoyo’s movements.

Shoyo talks to him as they begin to clean up the gym. He introduces himself as Inuoka Sou, also a first year, and he’s incredibly friendly off the court. He and Shoyo instantly strike up a lively recap of their personal match up, and Shoyo is glad that the person who defeated him today isn’t smug about it. In fact, Inuoka seems to be more impressed with Shoyo and Kageyama’s super quick than anything.

As they make their way out of the gym Shoyo makes a point to get Inuoka’s contact information. They exchange emails and phone numbers before they step out into the fading daylight and the two teams make their last goodbyes.

Shoyo catches sight of Kenma and chases him down for his information as well.

“Did you have fun today?” he asks as they swap emails.

Kenma looks uncomfortable. “Um,” he says, “it was okay, I guess.”

His chest tightens. “I really want to play a match against you,” Shoyo says, “and you come away with it saying more than that. I want to make you frustrated, or happy, or something!”

To his surprise, Kenma smiles. “First you should make your glasses teammate say something like that.”

Shoyo glances over his shoulder and sees Tsukishima standing off to the side with Tadashi, staring at his phone with extreme determination. He’s probably fed up with talking to people, Shoyo thinks, and the corner of his lips pull up for a half-second—and then he sees Nekoma’s captain, the tall boy Kenma called Kuro, give Tsukishima a knowing smirk.

He whips his head back around and grins brightly at Kenma. “I can work on both of you at the same time,” he says. He forces confidence into his voice. “I’m going to make you like volleyball whether you like it or not.”

Kenma shakes his head, but he still has that small smile on his mouth that makes Shoyo feel like he’s won something, even though all he did today was lose.

When Nekoma departs at last, Shoyo already misses his new friends. He waves frantically until they’re out of sight and promises himself he’ll text both Kenma and Inuoka the very next day.

He sees Kageyama come up beside him, and only then he remembers that he needs to set the record straight with Tsukishima. But when Shoyo looks for him, he sees Tadashi and Tsukishima have already started heading back to the lodge house.

It’s fine, Shoyo tells himself. That’s to be expected, since Tsukishima isn’t good with people for long stretches of time. He’s not like Shoyo in that way…or in a lot of ways. In any way.

His stomach twists.

Thinking like this isn’t good, Shoyo decides. He turns his attention to Kageyama, and their conversation quickly centers around volleyball. Halfway back to the lodge house Noya brings them popsicles he bought for them and Kageyama’s is a winner.

*

A week later, in the middle of a brief lunchtime study session with Tsukishima, Shoyo gets the shock of his life when Tsukishima asks if he would like to stay over at his house for the night.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing music for this chapter: Say It To My Face by Maty Noyes, Muscle Memory by Lights (Midnight Machines version), and The Highs by Panama. In case y'all are interested in...recreating vibes...

Shoyo spends practice in a bit of a daze, receiving a ball to the face more than once. He barely has the capacity to be annoyed at Tanaka and Tsukishima as they laugh at him. Shoyo just manages to apologize to Ukai, who has apparently signed on to be their coach permanently after their losses against Nekoma.

Spending the night at Tsukishima’s house…

He wonders if he should say anything to Tadashi about it.

He also wonders why he feels like he _should_ say something to Tadashi about it.

This is the first time Tsukishima has invited Shoyo to do anything, just the two of them, and it’s to spend the night. That seems like a big leap, especially for Tsukishima, so Shoyo wonders if Tadashi’s going to be there as well, but if he says something and Tadashi isn’t—

His stomach hurts.

Shoyo hasn’t had a proper conversation with Tsukishima since the night they spoke on the phone before Golden Week, and he’s been dragging his heels as he’s thought about everything that needs to be said. He needs to explain things to Tsukishima clearly.

Why did he have to go and make friends with someone so difficult?

To Shoyo’s surprise, it’s Tsukishima who says something to Tadashi about their impromptu sleepover.

“We need to stop by your house,” he says as they change in the club room. “Hinata’s staying over at my place tonight. He’s got overnight things in your room, right?”

Tadashi glances between Shoyo and Tsukishima. “Sure,” he agrees, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. “Any reason in particular you’re spending the night together?”

“I’m going to make him improve his English grade if it kills him,” Tsukishima says grimly.

Shoyo’s nerves, which had just begun to relax for the first time in hours, resume their frantic buzzing under his skin. Tsukishima does not sound like he’s joking. Shoyo takes the time to say some funeral prayers under his breath as he finishes changing and he swears he hears Sugawara laughing, though when he turns around his senpai is totally straight-faced.

“Good luck, Hinata,” Tadashi says, wincing.

The walk to Tadashi’s house is quiet. Shoyo rides his bike slowly, making circles as Tadashi and Tsukishima move at a slightly slower pace than him, and Tadashi is busy texting on his phone. Shoyo asks who it is that’s captured Tadashi’s attention, but the answer is a boring group project and any opportunity for conversation stalls out.

Tsukishima waits outside with Shoyo’s bike while Tadashi and Shoyo run inside. Shoyo is fine with that. He needs a minute to calm down.

As he’s stuffing a change of clothes and his toiletries into his backpack, Tadashi stands over him and asks:

“Are you really going to be doing English homework?”

Shoyo pauses. “Um,” he says, and thinks back to Tsukishima inviting him at lunch. “Probably? I think he was annoyed with me when he asked.”

“Things have been weird between you two since school started,” Tadashi says. He rubs the back of his head and a nervous grin stretches his face wide. “Did he find out about…you know?”

“Wh-what?” Shoyo’s heart lurches. “Why would it be about that?”

“I don’t know,” says Tadashi, “but—”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Shoyo says, and then he frowns. Is Tadashi talking about Shoyo’s sexuality or the crush he used to have on Tsukishima? He opens his mouth to ask, but Tadashi’s mother pokes her head through the bedroom door just then and greets Shoyo enthusiastically.

Five minutes pass before Shoyo is able to make his goodbyes to Tadashi and his mother, and he darts out of the house without asking Tadashi what he’d meant.

Tsukishima is leaning up against the side of the house when Shoyo comes out, his ankles crossed and his eyes on his phone, headphones on. He looks totally unconcerned with Shoyo’s bike. When Shoyo approaches him, Tsukishima’s eyes slowly drift up to meet his and Shoyo feels his stomach flip.

They’re halfway down the street when Shoyo, now walking his bike, hears Tsukishima sigh as he yanks off his headphones. He turns to glare down at Shoyo.

“What,” he demands flatly.

Shoyo blinks. “Huh?”

“You look like you have a question,” says Tsukishima. “Spit it out already, I’m having an anxiety attack just looking at you.”

“S-sorry,” Shoyo says, his cheeks warming. “It’s not something I want to say in public, though…”

Tsukishima lazily gestures around the street, empty save for them. “Is this really public?”

He grits his teeth. “Fine. Um. How…how long have you known about…me?”

“Hah?”

“About…” Shoyo waves his hand, indicating himself. He feels hot, embarrassed and maybe shameful, and he hates that he feels that way.

“I have no idea what you’re trying to say.”

“How I...about girls…and guys…”

Tsukishima stares for what could have been a second or a minute or a half hour. “About you being bi, you mean?”

“Being…what?”

“Bisexual,” Tsukishima says, and frowns. “Aren’t you?”

Shoyo hasn’t spent a lot of time investigating his feelings with outside sources. He doesn’t have a computer at home, and he doesn’t want to use a school computer to ask questions like “what does it mean when you like girls and boys” where anyone might find it. He’s heard the word “bisexual” a few times before, but…

Is that what he is? Is that what it means? That’s normal enough that there’s a word for it?

Even in this moment, a sense of cool relief punches through the hot stickiness churning inside him. He puts a hand to his chest and can feel his heartrate slowing just a little.

“Y-yeah,” he says, because Tsukishima has been waiting impatiently for his answer. “Yeah. Since when did you…”

“When you told Yamaguchi and me about your date with Itagaki-senpai,” Tsukishima says, shrugging. “You called it a date, even though it was with another guy. And you were worried that Yamaguchi might not like that Itagaki-senpai is gay. He is, right?”

“He is,” Shoyo says stupidly.

Since then? Tsukishima had known since then?

Tsukishima shrugs again. It occurs to Shoyo for the first time that he looks uncomfortable. “I thought you were gay, too,” he tells Shoyo. “Until I saw how you could be with girls. How come you can talk to guys normally but not girls like Shimizu-senpai, anyway?”

Shoyo’s tongue gets stuck to the roof of his mouth for a moment. “She’s…um, you’ve known for that long? Why didn’t you say anything?”

“It’s none of my business,” he says with another shrug. “I didn’t think you were going to say anything about it, either, until you did.”

“Oh.”

Now that Shoyo thinks about it, that’s a perfectly normal Tsukishima thing to do—or not do, as the case may be. Tsukishima doesn’t discuss the important things out loud unless someone, usually Shoyo, forces it out of him. He absorbs and he moves on.

Shoyo hadn’t even considered that Tsukishima might have noticed anything. Tadashi’s only known for six months and right up until Shoyo admitted his crush on Tsukishima aloud his friend had been in the dark. Tsukishima has known for a year longer than Tadashi and he still wanted Shoyo as a friend. In fact, they’d only grown closer since that time.

“So it’s okay?” Shoyo blurts out. “It’s okay that I’m…”

“Idiot,” is all Tsukishima says in response. It shouldn’t be reassuring, but it is.

*

Their conversation drops off as they near Tsukishima’s house. It’s the first time Shoyo has been here, and he is almost disappointed at how normal everything seems. Tsukishima lives in just another two story suburban house, the plan close to Tadashi’s.

Tsukishima’s mother is surprised to see Shoyo. He greets her nervously, wondering what she might think of a stranger staying at her house for the night, but she smiles at him and says she’s glad to finally meet him, giving her son a knowing look that Shoyo can’t read. She promises them dinner in an hour or so, and Tsukishima brings Shoyo up to his room.

A flush of nerves has Shoyo hesitating in the doorway. He pushes past them and takes some time to look around Tsukishima’s room.

Dinosaurs.

That’s the only thing Shoyo can think as he scans the walls. There are toy dinosaurs everywhere, mounted on shelves, next to Tsukishima’s computer, on the floor, even a couple stuffed dinosaurs on Tsukishima’s perfectly made bed. Shoyo spots several books on the subject on one shelf as well, seated next to a DVD box set of all three Jurassic Park movies.

Tsukishima likes dinosaurs. Really, _really_ likes them. It’s so unbearably cute that Shoyo puts his hands over his mouth to hold back the sound threatening to come out of him.

“What,” he hears Tsukishima say behind him.

Shoyo whirls and sees Tsukishima has already sat down in front of the low table in the middle of the room. He’s pulled out their English textbook and is glaring up at Shoyo irritably.

He blinks a couple of times. “Your room is different than I expected,” Shoyo says.

“What were you expecting?”

 _Not dinosaurs_ , Shoyo thinks, but doesn’t say. He gives Tsukishima a little shrug before sitting down across from him.

“Teach me all you know, sensei!”

“Don’t call me that ever again.”

They work diligently until Tsukishima’s mother calls them down for dinner. Tsukishima hadn’t been joking when he said he’d get Shoyo to improve his English if it killed him. Shoyo has one foot in the grave as he stumbles downstairs. His head hurts from concentrating and staying still for so long.

Tsukishima is a good teacher. Shoyo already knew that, has known it for almost three years now, but it feels like an eternity since it was just the two of them in a room. The hyper-focus Tsukishima brings out when he’s snarling at Shoyo for making the same mistake four times in a row is…

Shoyo shudders when he sits down for dinner.

Tsukishima’s father stays in an apartment in Sendai during the week for work, Shoyo learns, and his elder brother is lives in Sendai while attending university. Tsukishima’s mother is smiling and warm, not at all like her withdrawn younger son, and happily tells Shoyo all about their family while Tsukishima quietly eats beside him. She asks Shoyo about his and Tsukishima’s club activities.

It shouldn’t surprise Shoyo that she’s knowledgeable about volleyball. She’s had two sons active in the sport now, and reading between the lines Tsukishima’s elder brother Akiteru was talented enough to win awards in junior high. Tsukishima’s mother can discuss the finer points of plays, and that’s something Shoyo’s family has never been able to do.

He isn’t upset about that. He doesn’t need his mother or father to understand volleyball, only to support him. But he has to admit that it’s nice, and by the end of the meal he’s addressing Tsukishima’s mother with as much familiarity as he uses with Tadashi’s mother, and she seems overjoyed by it.

Tsukishima doesn’t say anything about this development, but the way he holds himself makes Shoyo think he might be pleased. There’s nothing Shoyo can point to that confirms this, and yet Shoyo thinks he’s finally getting a grasp on Tsukishima’s moods. It’s taken some time, especially since Tsukishima is so expressionless.

After dinner Shoyo expects to be taken to task again. Instead Tsukishima puts the first Jurassic park movie into his computer, and to Shoyo’s surprise the movie is in English instead of dubbed over.

He sneaks a look over at Tsukishima a few times during the movie. Is this why Tsukishima is so good at English? He watched these movies enough to gain an understanding of the language?

Cute. Too cute.

*

Shoyo doesn’t bring it up until they’ve gotten ready for bed.

“Why dinosaurs?” he says as he sits on Tsukishima’s bed. Tsukishima is laying out the futon for Shoyo on the floor, and looks up at the question.

“Why not,” Tsukishima says in a monotone.

“I just mean…I didn’t expect it, that’s all,” says Shoyo. He wraps his arms around his knees and shrugs. “So do you want to be one of those people who studies dinosaurs?”

“A paleontologist?”

“Yeah, that. Is that what you want to be?”

Tsukishima finishes laying out the futon and stands up straight. He looms over Shoyo, and Shoyo’s heart skips a beat at the sight.

With a sigh, Tsukishima says, “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“That’s really cool,” Shoyo tells him. “If you want to, you should do it.”

“Hm. There aren’t really any dinosaur fossils in Japan, though.”

“Is that why you work so hard at English?” asks Shoyo.

Tsukishima sits down on the bed near Shoyo and scoots back. He reaches up to one of shelves above his bed and pulls down a large book. Shoyo watches as Tsukishima flips through it before he puts it down onto the covers, faced toward Hinata.

The page that’s open is a map of the United States with several places marked, bubbles of information written in English off to the side of the map.

“These are the best dig sites in the U.S.,” Tsukishima says. “There are also sites in China and South America, but these ones have my favorite types of dinosaurs. I really want to go there and see some of the fossils they pull out myself someday. After high school, if there’s enough money, my dad says he’ll take me.”

“Wow,” Shoyo breathes. He looks up at Tsukishima. “Which ones are your favorite?”

It’s like Shoyo’s pulled a pin out of a grenade with his question and the information is exploding out of Tsukishima. He’s never heard Tsukishima speak so much in his life. Shoyo does his best to follow everything he hears but there’s a lot, way more than he could possibly remember. But Shoyo doesn’t stop Tsukishima with questions or ask him to wait. He’s utterly transfixed by this talkative person sitting so close, waving his hands and flipping to pictures in his books, because he keeps pulling new ones down from the shelves to show Shoyo something new.

He feels exhaustion creeping into him, making his eyelids heavy and his thoughts sluggish. He doesn’t tell Tsukishima to stop. He could listen to him talk like this forever.

*

Shoyo doesn’t know when his eyes closed and he fell asleep, but when he opens them next the room is dark and he feels cold.

He looks down toward his feet and sees the clock’s dull red numbers. Three minutes after two in the morning. Shoyo is still half asleep but he thinks he needs to pee. He turns his head and starts to climb off the bed when he pulls up short.

The red light from the clock casts a small, barely-there glow upon the sleeping face of Tsukishima, so close to Shoyo that he can feel the soft puffs of breath blowing on his cheeks now that he’s paying attention.

Shoyo can’t move. He stops breathing.

Tsukishima is…

Shoyo can’t take his eyes away from the sight of Tsukishima’s face, his glasses gone and eyes closed. He looks so soft right then, and the more Shoyo looks at him the more his eyes adjust to the low light from the clock so that he can see better and better. He sees Tsukishima’s lips, lightly parted in slumber. He can see Tsukishima’s eyelashes now, could count them if he wanted to. He wants to.

He’s aware of his entire body, aware of each bone and muscle as he holds them still, aware of where his clothes touch him and where gooseflesh raises his skin. His nerves buzz all over. He knows every millimeter of himself in that moment. Not moving is unbearable. His chest tightens and a breath blows out of him, slow and long.

 _Oh,_ he thinks. _This._

With a gasp, Shoyo presses a hand over his mouth, and then the other on top of it.

He wants to scream.

It doesn’t feel like a revelation. Shoyo just _knows_. He somehow lost the ability to lie to himself as he slept. He can’t hide behind the story of “almost gone” now. This never left. This never even started to leave.

He likes Tsukishima Kei so much that it hurts. He really, _really_ likes him. Any illusions he had about pretending otherwise until it became true are shattered as he looks at the sleeping boy mere centimeters away from him. Tsukishima is so vulnerable, and right in front of him, and Shoyo can just reach out and touch him if he wants. He wants.

His heart starts battering itself against his ribs. Tears prick at the corner of his eyes.

Shoyo needs to get out of here before he does something stupid.

He climbs over Tsukishima’s body, speed and caution warring with each other. He doesn’t want to wake up Tsukishima, but he needs to leave right now before he does something. He doesn’t want to be like Itagaki and just _kiss_ Tsukishima like every instinct in him is screaming.

Shoyo practically runs to the bathroom and shuts himself in. He turns on the light and squints at the fluorescent bright. The whirring fan helps drown out some of the panic in his mind. He runs the water in the sink and scrubs at his face until he’s as awake as it’s possible to be after two in the morning, and looks at his waterlogged reflection.

He feels stupid, now, as he thinks back. Of course the feeling that bubbled up around Kageyama wasn’t anything close to being in love. This a terrible, awful feeling, and while it’s a relief to allow himself to feel it, he doesn’t like what it does to his chest.

Or his stomach.

He feels sick.

What is he supposed to do? What is he supposed to do now? How is he supposed to act?

And for that matter, what the hell was wrong with Tsukishima? They just talked about this today, that Shoyo is attracted to guys. Didn’t Tsukishima stop to think before he just went and fell asleep next to Shoyo like that?

…Not that Shoyo had stopped to think before he fell asleep, himself.

This is so stupid. This is so _stupid_. Tsukishima is his best friend—why can’t Shoyo think of Tsukishima the same way he thinks of Tadashi? What’s the difference between them? Why is it like this?

He’s only just cleared the air between them. Maybe Tsukishima had known about Shoyo all along, but that doesn’t mean he’ll be fine with Shoyo specifically liking _him._ Gender aside, that sort of thing messes up friendships all the time, doesn’t it? Shoyo doesn’t want to lose Tsukishima as a friend, and he refuses to push his feelings onto someone else in any case…

At the same time…at the same time, Shoyo is done with lying to himself. He sees determination in his reflection, and thinks maybe he’s looking at someone else’s face in the mirror. A different Hinata Shoyo who isn’t torn up inside might be staring back at him.

There’s no way he can go on as he has. He’s tried pushing it away, ignoring it, pretending it’s on the way out—he can’t keep that up anymore. It’s too big now, this mess in him. It’s too much to tamp down. He’s going to have to figure out how to hide it without denying it, and that also seems like too much.

It’s just too much for two in the morning.

Shoyo uses the toilet before he returns to Tsukishima’s room. He rubs his face and hands dry on a towel and takes a steadying breath as he crosses the threshold back into the dark room.

Tsukishima hasn’t moved since Shoyo left him. He watches Tsukishima’s back for a long moment, feeling the squeeze in his chest. It’s there. It’s always been there. He can admit that to himself now, because there’s nothing he can do to change that. He’s stuck like this. He’s _stuck_.

The pressure of his own helplessness makes Shoyo’s eyes burn. His lips pinch together and he tears his gaze away. He quietly slips into the cold futon, curling up in a ball facing away from Tsukishima.

Sleep takes its time to pull him under again.

*

Shoyo doesn’t spend the next few weeks ignoring his new revelation—or resignation, more like—exactly, but he doesn’t have the time to focus on it. Preliminaries for summer Nationals are coming up and every moment of his time that isn’t consumed by volleyball practice is devoted to studying or sleep. Sometimes the two blend into each other.

So he isn’t ignoring what he feels for Tsukishima. He doesn’t have the time to think about it.

That’s probably for the best. He’d just be retreading old ground if he let himself dwell on it. Everything he’s feelings now isn’t new, which makes it worse. He finds himself hating Tsukishima sometimes, though he knows that isn’t fair. He did this to himself.

It helps that Ukai has the team practicing until the sun sets almost every day. Sometimes it’s already dark when they leave the gym and Shoyo spends those nights at Tadashi’s house. He doesn’t ask Tsukishima if he can stay with him instead, and Tsukishima doesn’t offer.

Tsukishima hadn’t mentioned sharing the bed with Shoyo in the morning after their sleepover. He’d woken up before Shoyo and shook him awake brusquely, announcing breakfast in an irritated voice that might have made Shoyo nervous if he hadn’t heard it every morning during the training camp. They’d gone to school together in an easy silence and neither of them had brought up the subject since.

But it’s fine. Shoyo has more important things to focus on.

Ukai has positioned him as one of the key points of Karasuno’s strategy. Shoyo is to function primarily as a decoy, using his jumps and super quick to keep the opposing team’s eyes on him. He doesn’t know if it will work but he loves every run through, every approach to the net and that he’s here, at Karasuno, and one of the most valuable players on the court.

He can’t get enough of that feeling when Kageyama sends a toss his way and the ball smacks into the center of his palm before hitting the floor with a slam. Super quick or normal quick, or any toss at all, he’ll hit it and hit gladly.

One week Ukai devotes Shoyo and Azumane to perfecting the pipe attack Nekoma had used against them in the practice matches. Azumane’s month off from club practice makes his back attacks slam into the net at first, and Shoyo worries that he’ll get a ball to the back of his head as he’s jumping in front of Azumane as the decoy, but they manage to pull it off after some work.

Shoyo can’t stop watching Azumane’s spikes sometimes. There’s so much power in those hits that the ball will sometimes bounce high, high up, and Shoyo thinks it might hit even the gym ceiling. The impact sounds totally different than when Shoyo spikes a ball.

That makes sense, though. Azumane is big, and broad, and tall—though not as tall as Tsukishima—and his arms are corded with muscle. His entirety has Shoyo writhing in envy, though he tries to reel the darker, more bitter parts of it in. With that sort of body, Shoyo could have been on his junior high team as a first year.

Azumane seems to sense Shoyo’s envy, somehow. He doesn’t take it as a challenge. He’s friendly and open with Shoyo in a way that makes Shoyo feel like he’s speaking to an equal rather than a senpai. Azumane is nice in a way the other two third years can’t be. Sawamura is their captain and has to be strict and mature when the situation calls for it, and Sugawara is kind but matches that kindness with a wicked playfulness that is unpredictable at best.

Shoyo knows he won’t ever have the same size, no matter how disappointing it is to admit that, but he still can’t keep his eyes off Azumane’s technique. Dreaming never hurt anyone, right?

*

A few days before the tournament is to begin, Shoyo gets a text from Miura.

 _Looks like we’re in different blocks,_ it reads.

Shoyo grins and sits down on the floor of the club room as he waits for Tadashi to finish changing. The sun has already set and the last bits of daylight are going fast, and Shoyo’s mother has already given her blessing for Shoyo to stay at Tadashi’s house for the entire week if he needs to.

_Yep! Guess we’ll just have to crush Wakunan some other time!_

_Haha, you wish._

“Who’re you texting?” he hears Tadashi ask.

Shoyo holds his phone up and shows him just as his phone buzzes again. Tadashi smiles as he reads the new message and Shoyo pulls the phone back to him.

_If Terada’s team makes it through the first match our team will play his. I think he’s a regular._

A pang of envy goes through Shoyo. He wants to play against his old teammates, too. He wants to prove himself against them with everything Karasuno has on his side.

_Tsukishima and I are starting players._

_Lucky! Is it a small club?_

_Yeah, only 12 members. But we’re really strong!_

For a moment Shoyo thinks of telling Miura that they’d won a practice match against Seijou, but erases the text before he gets more than a few characters in. After all, Oikawa hadn’t been on the court for either of those two sets, and Karasuno had the advantage of surprise. He doesn’t want to brag about something they haven’t truly earned. Not yet.

_That’s great, Hinata! Maybe we’ll meet in the quarterfinals. Who are you up against in your block?_

_If we win our first match, Dateko, and then Seijou._

_Ouch._

_Yeah. Wish us luck!_

_Will do. Say, Terada and I are meeting up on Sunday after the preliminaries. Do you want to come?_

Shoyo whips his head up to look at Tadashi. “What are you doing next Sunday?” he asks.

Tadashi glances around the club room, and Shoyo realizes that most of his teammates’ eyes are on him. Shoyo must have been louder than he thought. He flushes a little at the smirk on Sugawara’s face.

“Homework, probably,” Tadashi says hesitantly.

 _Can Tadashi come?_ Shoyo texts hastily.

_Sure. Tsukishima too, if he wants. He probably doesn’t, though, right?_

“Kei-chan, what about you?” says Shoyo before he can think about it.

“Hm…why?”

“Miura and Terada invited us to hang out.”

“Huh.” Tsukishima looks at his phone and shrugs. “Sure.”

_We’ll be there! Just say where!_

Shoyo tucks his phone into his pocket and gets to his feet, smiling at Tadashi as they leave the club room, giving their goodbyes to everyone still there on the way out.

Tadashi makes a humming sound in the back of his throat. “I haven’t heard from either of them since school started,” he says.

“Me neither,” Shoyo says. “I’m excited! I want to see how much they’ve learned in the last few months. Do you think either of them have come up with a cool technique like I have with Kageyama?”

“Like that? Probably not. If Terada’s a regular, he might know some new plays, though.”

“I’m excited,” Shoyo says again. “I wonder if Matsu-chan is available.”

Tadashi glances sideways at him, which Shoyo only catches because they walk under a streetlight. He frowns up at Tadashi in confusion, but doesn’t press.

Finally Tadashi says: “Have you talked to her since graduation?”

“We’ve emailed,” Shoyo says. “Not often. She’s really busy.”

“Hm.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Shoyo wonders why Tadashi looks uncomfortable but before he has a chance to ask the subject is changed.

“So, you know,” he tells Shoyo, “Last week I went to Shimada-san and asked him to teach me the jump float serve. We’ve been working on it every night, except he’s busy tonight.”

“Who?”

“Shimada-san,” Tadashi repeats. “You remember, the glasses guy from the neighborhood association team? He’s the one that got all those points from his serves.”

Shoyo thinks back to the game they’d played against the adults before Golden Week and recalls the challenging serve that had, on one occasion, made Shoyo fall flat on his face as he attempted to receive a ball that hadn’t landed where he’d projected it would.

“Yeah,” he says, “yeah I remember now. Why did you ask him to teach you?”

“Because…” Tadashi lets out a little embarrassed laugh. “Because you and Tsukki, and Kageyama, you’re all starting members. I’m the only first year who isn’t. And I’m really happy for you and Tsukki, I am! But I don’t want to get left behind. So…if my serve is really good…”

“You’re already good at serves,” Shoyo blurts out. “You are! You have been since junior high. Everyone said so!”

Tadashi smiles at him. “Thanks. But I don’t want to just be good, I want to be _really good._ I want to be good enough to be a pinch setter. Because if I am, then if you guys need me…I mean, I don’t like just staying in the warm up box the entire time.”

Shoyo looks at his friend and smiles as brightly as he can. Inside, he’s a mess of emotions.

He understands how Tadashi feels, since he felt that way for three years, but…he never thought Tadashi would have that kind of longing for the court. Three years he’d been pushing Tadashi to aim higher, and now it happens? What changed? Is he jealous of Shoyo? Angry? Upset?

Thinking those sorts of things about Tadashi makes Shoyo’s stomach hurt. Tadashi has always been nice, always supportive. Shoyo doesn’t want to think his friend has any negative feelings toward him.

“You’re never going to be left behind,” Shoyo says, and means it. “I bet you’ll be our best pinch server, just you wait.”

“Thanks.”

“Mm.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, have I been excited to write Hinata's 2 am Moment, I definitely spent way too much time editing it to my satisfaction. Let me know if it came across the way I intended! Now that that's finished, we're......not quite in the home stretch, but I am going to finish this fic if it kills me...not that it will but I am Determined.
> 
> Can y'all do me a favor? I haven't been reading much tsukihina fic lately...if you want to leave a comment, would you mind terribly putting in a rec? The current manga arc is so sparse for them and I am Bereft, friends!!


	12. Chapter 12

Shoyo gets home long after the sun has set, arriving just as his mother is putting Natsu to bed. He barely merits a greeting from either of them; they’re so used to him staying over at Tadashi’s at least once a week that they’re sometimes more surprised when he comes home. He pulls leftovers from the fridge and eats until he’s had his fill, which means he goes through a lot of leftovers.

After a shower, Shoyo crawls into bed and stares up at the ceiling, tired yet wide awake.

He thinks about the homework he should probably be doing. He thinks about Tadashi, whose failed pinch serve had been haunting him even before the final set had ended. He thinks about Tsukishima, who was probably telling himself “I told you so” after going head-to-head with a stronger opponent and losing. He thinks about Kageyama apologizing— _apologizing!_ —for the toss Shoyo had ruined, acting like the whole play had been a mistake.

He wonders who will win tomorrow.

*

“So,” says Ukai, “Today was the Finals for our prefecture’s InterHigh qualifiers. The winner was Shiratorizawa, and Seijou was the runner up.”

Shoyo wants to throw something against the wall. As Ukai had so bluntly put it a minute ago, Karasuno simply isn’t good enough to beat Seijou, which isn’t even the strongest school between their team and the Spring High.

Shoyo glares at the floor and can feel Kageyama next to him doing the same thing.

They’re just not good enough. He doesn’t know if Kageyama has come to the same conclusion, but Shoyo knows their super quick won’t cut it anymore, not if they want to reach the top. And with the super quick not being enough, Shoyo doesn’t have a place on the court. Without that he’s not a bad player; his receives are almost as good as Sawamura’s and Noya’s but his serves are passable at best and there are two other middle blockers who fit the role better waiting to take his spot.

After three years sitting in the stands, watching his friends become regulars, Shoyo finally got the chance to stand on the court with his teammates. He doesn’t want to lose that, doesn’t want to go back to watching.

Shoyo doesn’t realize Ukai is still talking until he mentions the Spring High.

“…Ever since it was moved up to January,” he says. “Back in my day, it was still run in March, so the third years couldn’t go. You have no idea how jealous I am.” Ukai’s eyes narrow in Sugawara and Asahi’s direction, and both third years look slightly apologetic.

Sawamura gets to his feet. “Once, years ago, Karasuno played in that tournament,” he says. “We are going there again.”

Coming from Sawamura, it doesn’t sound like fantasy. His deep voice and broad shoulders make Shoyo feel like it’s reality, and for a moment he forgets all about the worry gnawing in his gut. The mood in the gym shifts at their captain’s words.

Shoyo turns to Kageyama, about to broach the subject of their quick, when Takeda bursts through the gym doors and falls on his face before saying one magic word:

Tokyo.

*

 The next day during lunch break, Shoyo is in the middle of texting Miura for directions for Sunday when a couple of his classmates run to the doors and windows, murmuring excitedly to each other.

He looks over, frowning slightly, but everyone seems too stunned by what’s going on in the hall to share any details. Curiosity gets the better of Shoyo and he drops his phone into his pocket before scurrying over to the door. He cranes his neck and glances around until he sees a very familiar pair of black stocking-covered legs.

A second later Shoyo’s entire face burns because _what is he doing looking at her legs what is he_ —

“Kiy—I mean, Shimizu-senpai!” he blurts out, and cringes.

Oh god, oh god, did he really almost call her “Kiyoko-san” _to her face_ oh god what is wrong with him, he needs to never speak with Tanaka and Noya again because they are clearly terrible influences on him—

Shimizu turns around to see who called out to her, and to Shoyo’s total mortification, she walks toward him purposefully. He can feel the eyes of everyone turn toward him, probably wondering which stupid mortal dared to be in her presence.

“Um!” his brain has stopped working. “What are you…do..dwo?”

“Hinata,” Shimizu says to him (to him!), saving him from his own traitorous mouth, “I have a question.”

“Ye…hyep?”

_Or not._

“Do you know a first year who isn’t in a club?”

Whatever Shoyo had been expecting—which, to be fair, he doesn’t exactly have the capacity to expect anything—it hadn’t been this. He looks up at Shimizu’s face, which seems determined but somehow nervous, as if she finds the prospect of her approaching Shoyo as daunting as he does.

“Let…let me ask around!” he stammers. “Wh—what’s this for?”

“A new team manager,” says Shimizu.

*

Shoyo is still thinking this over when he arrives for practice.

He’d put the word out with his classmates when they’d come back from lunch break. It helped that the ones who’d stayed in the classroom had seen Shimizu and were insistent that everyone help the “pretty third year girl,” as they put it, or risk pissing off some god somewhere. Shoyo already has a few names of people in his class who aren’t in clubs, which he has written down on a piece of scrap paper that he plans to hand to Shimizu once practice is finished.

She seems so perfect, and so competent, that Shoyo hadn’t considered she might need help. Being a club manager must be difficult.

When Shoyo steps into the gym he sees Takeda speaking in low tones with Ukai, whose eyes are slightly narrowed as he listens. Shoyo wonders if Ukai knows that every time he narrows his eyes he looks even more like a low-rank yakuza. If he doesn’t, Shoyo won’t be the one to tell him.

He heads over to Kageyama and joins him in warm up stretches.

“Think they’re talking about Tokyo?” he asks, nodding at the two adults.

Kageyama shrugs. He’s apparently not in a talkative mood today, so when Tanaka and Noya enter the gym Shoyo waves them over. They discuss their days, though Shoyo omits his lunchtime visit. For some reason he thinks it’ll be best for his own personal safety if he doesn’t mention speaking with Shimizu.

After everyone has made it into the gym, Ukai calls them over and tells them to sit down as Takeda talks to them. Shoyo exchanges an excited look with Noya and settles himself between him and Tanaka, with Kageyama on Tanaka’s other side.

As Shoyo had expected, Takeda begins to explain what their summer training camps in Tokyo will look like. He pays close attention as their schedule comes into focus, doing his best to stay still even though he feels like vibrating.

And then Takeda says, “However,” and every single person goes tense.

Shoyo glances to Ukai, who looks unusually grim.

“There are many teams as good as—if not better than—us here in our own prefecture,” Takeda continues. “Yet we are instead deliberately choosing to leave to practice elsewhere against other teams. This is a unique opportunity for us.”

He puts special emphasis on “unique opportunity,” the way someone might say “fire at will” in a war movie. Shoyo glances over at Tadashi and Tsukishima, who are exchanging looks.

“The first field trip will be early next month. Do you recall what else is early next month?” As Takeda takes a pause, Shoyo thinks that their faculty supervisor has practiced this moment or he has a natural flair for drama. At last he goes on, announcing, “The end of the school term. That means final exams.”

To his right and left, Tanaka and Noya freeze up. Shoyo frowns. Had they forgotten? He doesn’t see why his two senpai are suddenly doing their best impressions of sculptures. As Takeda explains that Nekoma’s finals take place at the same time as Karasuno’s, Shoyo tries to puzzle out why Tanaka, Noya, and even Kageyama are so freaked out, until Takeda points out that any failed exam would lead to a make-up and subsequent barring from the field trip.

Shoyo stares as Tanaka and Noya jump up and take off.

“Tanaka! Nishinoya! Where are you going? There’s nowhere for you to run!” Sawamura yells, clearly a half-step ahead of Shoyo. “Ennoshita, catch them!”

Meanwhile, Tadashi has scrambled over to where Shoyo and Kageyama have been left sitting, stunned.

“I think Kageyama’s stopped breathing!” he reports, panicked.

Shoyo peers over and sees that Kageyama has gone deathly pale. Just as he’d thought; Kageyama is actually kind of stupid. No way he’d be halfway to death otherwise.

“Well, we did say we’d balance the team and school,” Sugawara says to Sawamura and Shimizu as Ennoshita hauls back his wayward teammates. “No way we can fail after that.”

Tsukishima makes a derisive snort and comes to stand next to Tadashi. “Who’d be stupid enough to fail?” he says, sneering down at Kageyama with an expression Shoyo knows all too well.

“No one’s failing,” says Ennoshita.

“I think I might have to study, or I’ll really be in trouble,” Tadashi remarks to Azumane, who’s come over to Kageyama with the first aid kit in hand.

“Me too,” Azumane replies.

“Hey! Hang on a second!” Tanaka shouts, and points directly at Shoyo. “How are you so calm right now?”

“Yeah, hey!” Noya chimes in. He wriggles loose of Ennoshita’s grip and stands up, hands on hips, glaring down at Shoyo, who has yet to get to his feet like everyone else. “What the heck with that, Shoyo? No way you aren’t in danger like the rest of us!”

“The rest of us?” Ennoshita says, a little bit of steel sneaking into his voice.

Noya flinches. “I mean, you know, the rest of us, well—”

“Idiots?” suggests Sugawara.

“Oy!” Noya and Shoyo say together.

Shoyo is a little worried about the upcoming finals, yeah, but he finds Noya’s assumption that Shoyo is a regular exam flunker pretty insulting. He leaps upright.

“Speak for yourself,” he tells his two senpai. “I haven’t failed an exam since seventh grade.”

Both Tanaka and Noya’s jaws drop.

“That’s so rude!” Shoyo says, pointing at them. “The heck?”

“This just isn’t possible,” Noya mutters. “This has to be a dream or something. Wake up!” he slaps himself across the face hard and then hisses in pain.

“It must have been the school, it had to have been, there’s no way—” Tanaka cuts himself off as his eyes fall on Tsukishima. He gasps. “You!”

Tsukishima smirks. “As if I would be friends with anyone who fails his exams,” he says. “Obviously I help Hinata study.”

The two sink to their knees.

“Tsukishima-sama!” Tanaka says loudly and begins to crawl forward.

“Sensei, help us too!” begs Noya.

“Gross,” Tsukishima mutters. “No, go away.”

“Oh my god,” Kageyama says in a trance. “Oh my god.”

“We’re so screwed!” Noya cries. He falls onto his hands and lets out a terrible groan.

“Come on now,” Takeda says gently, but he looks like he’s gone into a trance. “You can do it if you try. You can do it if you try.”

“Everyone, stop panicking!” Sawamura shouts, and the gym goes quiet as it always does when the captain raises his voice. He takes a deep breath. “We still have time before the tests. Can Karasuno still play at its full potential without these morons? No, it can’t!"

“Wha—hang on,” Tanaka protests weakly.

“So we’re going to do it,” says Sawamura, ignoring Tanaka entirely. “All of us are going to Tokyo. Together.”

Sugawara takes a step back. “His eyes have glazed over!”

“Oh my god, he looks so scary,” Azumane says, going pale.

“You two, shut up!” snaps Sawamura.

*

It takes a little while for order to be fully restored in the gym. Ultimately practice consists mostly of drills that day since half their team is paralyzed with anxiety. Shoyo is fine with this, considering how Tanaka and Noya are not-so-subtly targeting him with stray balls, and Kageyama is just a shadow of himself.

Afterwards Shoyo runs up to the club room and changes quickly, running out just as Sawamura has Tanaka, Noya, and Kageyama sit in front of him for a lecture. He finds Shimizu about to leave the gym and hands her the list he’s come up with from today, promising her more on Monday. Already he’s gotten a couple names in emails from his classmates and their friends.

Shoyo returns to the club room just in time to see Tsukishima and Tadashi leaving.

“Bet you’re feeling pretty lucky you’re friends with us, huh,” Tadashi jokes lightly as Shoyo falls into step with them.

“Hey, I also had Terada back in junior high, you know,” he points out. “But, yeah. Thanks, Kei-chan.”

“Whatever,” says Tsukishima, shoving his hands into his pockets. “And you only started studying with Terada in third year.”

“That’s because I had you!”

“Speaking of,” Tadashi says before Tsukishima can reply, “has Miura gotten back to you about Sunday yet?”

Shoyo grins and pulls out his phone. As they walk toward Tsukishima and Tadashi’s neighborhood, they discuss their plans for Sunday morning, when they’ll meet up and where. It’s exciting to think that in only a little over a day they’ll be seeing their former teammates. Not that he doesn’t like everyone at Karasuno, but they’re not a replacement. They’re just different.

When they reach the point where Shoyo has to leave them, he moves to gets on his bike only for Tsukishima to say, haltingly:

“Do you…want to stay over? Get started on studying?”

Shoyo’s chest tightens and he forgets to breathe for a moment.

He hasn’t been alone with Tsukishima since the night he was forced to acknowledge his feelings. They’ve spoken, and Shoyo has acted normal around him, but never without a buffer like Tadashi. He knows he’ll have to, eventually, but…

“I already told my mom I’d be home for dinner,” he says. He pastes what he hopes is a convincing regretful smile on his face.

“Oh.”

Tadashi glances between them, clearly picking up on the tension in the air.

“I’ll take you up on that next week, though!” Shoyo forces himself to add. “I’m not in serious trouble like Tanaka-san and Noya-san, or Kageyama, but…well, it’s me, right?”

“I’m really surprised Kageyama has such bad grades,” Tadashi muses. “He seems like he’d be a smart guy.”

“He probably has nothing but volleyball crammed into his stupid head,” says Tsukishima. “Sounds like someone else I know.” He gives Shoyo a taunting look.

Shoyo opens his mouth to reply, probably something about dinosaurs (he wasn’t quite sure _what_ he was going to say), but from behind him he hears a throat clearing and turns around to see Kageyama frowning at the three of them.

“Hah?” Tsukishima says. “Got a problem?”

“That’s not an angry frown,” Shoyo tells both his friends. “That’s his ‘I have to do something I don’t want to’ frown. What’s up, Kageyama?”

Kageyama’s face transforms from his “I have to do something I don’t want to” frown into his “how did you do that” frown before he shakes his head like he’s clearing it, and takes a step forward.

“Hinata,” says Kageyama, “please help me study.”

“Oh, no,” Shoyo says. “You don’t want my help. You want Kei-chan’s.”

After baring his teeth in obvious displeasure, Kageyama turned to Tsukishima. “Tsukishima…-san,” he grinds out. “Will you please help me study?”

“I don’t want to,” Tsukishima answers immediately.

Kageyama looks ready to murder him. Shoyo drops his bike and jumps between the two of them, holding out his hands in case Kageyama decides to launch himself forward and tackle Tsukishima. He can’t do anything about Tsukishima’s acid tongue, unfortunately.

“Does his Majesty need a little help controlling his temper?”

“Tsukki!”

“Kei-chan!”

“What’s your problem?” Kageyama snarls.

“Just half an hour every day,” Shoyo pleads with Tsukishima. “Even just a few tip and tricks for studying! For Tokyo!”

Tsukishima eyes Kageyama. “I don’t like working with lost causes, though?”

Shoyo feels ready to tear his hair out. Tsukishima is so _bad_ with people, it’s almost funny, except for the part where it might sabotage their time at the Tokyo training camps this summer.

“A few minutes before and after practice wouldn’t be so bad, would it?” Tadashi adds helpfully.

After a few tense seconds, in which Tsukishima and Kageyama glared at each other, and Tadashi and Shoyo looked back and forth between them like they were at a tennis match, Tsukishima’s shoulders relaxed the tiniest bit.

“Fine,” he allows, “but _only_ before and after practice. And I expect you to do most of the studying on your own.”

Privately, Shoyo thinks that Tsukishima won’t be able to stick to that, considering how invested in Shoyo’s academic success he’s become over the years, but thanks Tsukishima profusely and elbows Kageyama to do the same. Tadashi offers to buy Kageyama a snack and shoots Shoyo a look that indicates he take Tsukishima away and diffuse whatever petty fight might crop up, in case Tsukishima changes his mind.

The pair of them watch Tadashi and Kageyama cross the street and enter Sakanoshita Shop, the bell over the door dinging quietly in the night air.

Tsukishima walks over to Shoyo’s bike and rights it.

“Thanks,” says Shoyo, and moves to the other side of the bike. He takes the handles from Tsukishima, careful for their hands not to touch.

“I didn’t do it for you,” Tsukishima tells him, and for a confused second Shoyo thinks he means the bike. “He’s going to be in my debt, now. That’ll be fun.”

“You’re kind of warped,” Shoyo says. “But okay. I’ll see you tomorrow at practice.”

Shoyo is again about to get on his bike when Tsukishima stops him.

“Um!”

He looks up and sees Tsukishima’s mouth twisting into something pained.

“Hm?”

“You…you said you can’t stay over tonight, but, um…tomorrow,” he says awkwardly. “Just so we’re not waiting on you Sunday morning or anything. Tomorrow night, I mean. If you want to.”

Shoyo’s stomach is tying in knots. He wouldn’t be surprised if his guts were making balloon animal shapes. All he can see is Tsukishima’s face, so close to his, and all he can feel is the night air on his skin. Everything is so quiet around them; if Tsukishima can’t hear Shoyo’s heart beating, that would be a miracle, because it’s echoing so loudly in his ears.

 _You’re killing me,_ he thinks, helpless.

“Sure,” he agrees with a lightness he doesn’t feel. “That’s a good idea, actually.”

“What, are you surprised I have good ideas?”

“Jerk.”

“Idiot.”

Tsukishima takes a step back as Shoyo finally mounts his bike and takes off down the street, letting gravity do most of the work for him. He takes deep breaths and shakes one hand and then the other to make the trembling stop. It doesn’t.

*

Tadashi meets them at Tsukishima’s house on Sunday a little after ten. It’s shaping up to be a cloudless day, and Shoyo’s been awake since six in the morning, when he took an hour long run around the neighborhood at the speed of someone fleeing a natural disaster. Which is kind of what he was doing.

Tsukishima had made Shoyo study a little that night, which helped Shoyo’s heart stop beating so hard against his rib cage. But then Tsukishima had popped in Jurassic Park 2, followed by the third film, and he’d sat close enough to Shoyo that he could feel his skin buzzing at the proximity. It was torture the whole way through and he barely managed to follow the movie plot.

This time, when Tsukishima set up the futon, Shoyo made sure he was sitting on it instead of Tsukishima’s bed so he didn’t accidently fall asleep in the wrong place again. Even so, it took a while to fall asleep after the lights went out and he could hear Tsukishima’s soft breathing. So when he’d woken up at six, he’d woken up tired, but there was no way he could go back to sleep.

At least with Tadashi there, Shoyo feels like he can relax a little. It’s not fair to Tsukishima that he’s so tightly wound but Shoyo can’t help it. He can’t remember how he used to handle this, and even if he could remember, Tsukishima is more invested in their friendship now than he had been back in middle school. Probably because he’s staking his friend claim in front of Kageyama.

The café Miura wants to meet at is far enough that they’re riding their bikes. Shoyo is surprised to see both Tsukishima and Tadashi actually have bikes.

Shoyo is the first one to reach the café, which makes sense. Neither Tadashi nor Kei have spent a lot of time biking long distance the way Shoyo has. He left them at about the halfway point, but he’s not worried about it.

The closest bike rack is empty save for one bike that Shoyo thinks is Terada’s, and Shoyo locks his bike next to it. He pats his pockets to check that his wallet is still in place before heading inside.

He sees Miura right away and waves. The person sitting across from him turns around and Shoyo sees the back of that dyed head is Terada. They both wave back at him and smile, and Shoyo feels a grin splitting his face.

“Hi!” he calls, and hurries over to them. “What the heck did you do to your hair?”

Terada raises a hand to his hair and ruffles it nervously. “Do you like it?”

Shoyo slides in next to Miura at the booth. “Maybe,” he says. “When did it happen?”

“The first day of school,” Terada tells him, grinning.

“He thinks it makes him look cool,” says Miura. “Please tell him it doesn’t make him look cool?”

“Huh. I think it’s growing on me,” Shoyo admits. He glances around the café. “So, you said you come here a lot?”

Miura shrugs. “They’re open late,” he says. “Sometimes the team will stop by after practice and get some snacks here.”

“We’ve got a place like that, too,” Shoyo says excitedly. “Only, it’s a snack shop, not a café, and our coach works there. It’s his family’s place. Our senpai sometimes treat us to meat buns!”

“That was the guy with the blond hair, right? The punk-looking one?”

“That’s him!”

Terada snorts. “That’s not a good way to describe your coach.”

“It’s true, though,” says Shoyo. “He does look like a punk. He’s a really good coach, though. He’s the grandson of Coach Ukai—that’s the guy that brought Karasuno to Nationals before.”

A server stops by and asks if any of them would like a drink. Miura tells her they’re waiting on two more people, but Shoyo asks for a glass of water. The moment she leaves he wonders if he should have asked for two more, since Tsukishima and Tadashi will probably be as parched as he is when they get here.

Just as he’s considering this, the door opens and the two of them stumble through it, red-faced and panting a little.

Tsukishima glances around, looking for them, but Tadashi’s gaze land on Shoyo immediately. He nudges Tsukishima and points. Shoyo’s heart stutters when their eyes meet.

“Has Tsukishima gotten taller?” Miura asks, and Terada cranes his neck around to see.

“I think so.”

“I can’t tell,” says Shoyo, watching the pair walk toward them. “I see him every day.”

“Thanks for abandoning us,” Tsukishima says. “Move over.” He shoves in next to Shoyo, forcing Miura to scoot over as well and causing Shoyo to be a human sandwich between the two.

“Hi, guys,” Tadashi says. He sounds vaguely apologetic. “How’ve you been? Woah, Terada, what did you do to your hair?”

The next fifteen minutes are spent on catching up. Miura tells them about playing for Wakunan, and about his captain Nakashima Takeru, whom Miura claims is the next Little Giant. Shoyo doesn’t know if he’s saying that just to fire him up, but it does. Terada’s club just lost all the third years so he’s now a starting member, and he boasts about that to annoy Miura. Shoyo wishes he wouldn’t, because Tadashi has that look on his face like he’s just been kicked, the same look he had during his failed pinch serve during their match against Seijou.

“But, Shoyo,” Terada says after he drinks from his impossibly pink smoothie, “that quick you did, that was amazing! I couldn’t believe you were doing that!”

“Yeah,” Miura chimes in. “And with the King of the Court, too. That’s crazy, you two ending up in the same school. Is he a total pain in the ass?”

“Yes,” says Tsukishima.

Shoyo huffs a sigh. “He’s trying to be a better teammate,” he says. “He’s a great setter, though.”

Tsukishima clicks his tongue, which has Shoyo turning to frown at him.

“What?”

“You _know_ he’s a good setter,” Shoyo says. “Just because you don’t like him and you’ve got some weird friend jealousy thing going on—”

“Woah, wait, what’s this?” Terada asks, leaning forward.

“Nothing,” Tsukishima snaps.

Shoyo waves that aside. “It’s just Kei-chan being Kei-chan,” he explains. “You know how he was with Tadashi when we started junior high?”

Both Miura and Terada make sounds of understanding, which has Tsukishima spluttering and Tadashi snickering behind his hand.

“I don’t— _friend jealousy?_ What is that supposed to—”

“You two worked together,” Shoyo points out. “During the match with Seijou. He seriously did his best to work with you and trust you. I saw it! We all saw it. You can’t tell me he wasn’t being a good setter then.”

Tsukishima grumbles but doesn’t argue. Shoyo’s grateful for that.

He’d been proud of both Kageyama and Tsukishima at that moment. Kageyama had approached Tsukishima openly—or, as openly as possible for him—and didn’t back down until they’d come to some sort of agreement. Tsukishima had surrendered a little of his obstinance in response, and they’d put together a smart series of plays.

Watching them, Shoyo had thought that perhaps the two could someday come to a cease fire. They’d never be friends, not with their particular bad mix of personalities…but then again, Shoyo had thought that about Tsukishima for over a year, and now here they were, jammed against each other in the same booth after a sleepover.

Well, it would be a long way to go for Tsukishima and Kageyama to get along, if ever. Shoyo isn’t holding his breath, especially not after Friday night.

“I really was surprised, though,” Miura tells them. “I’d heard Karasuno was, well, not so good anymore. You guys came out of nowhere. If you hadn’t been up against Seijou, you might have made top eight.”

“We’re gonna win against them next time,” says Shoyo. “And we’re going to go to Nationals.”

Miura and Terada exchange a look, like, _this guy,_ but Shoyo ignores it. He’s used to that look by now. He’s seen it from friends and opponents alike and he’s stopped being bothered by it. No one else needs to know he’s right.

“Oh, hey, by the way, Yamaguchi, you’re a pinch server now?” Terada asks.

Tadashi goes pale behind his freckles. “N-no, not really,” he stammers.

“You were always good at serves back in junior high,” Terada goes on. “What the heck happened?”

“Um…”

“Jump serves aren’t that easy,” Tsukishima says over Tadashi’s stuttering attempt to speak. “And anyway, no player has a one hundred percent success rate. Especially not you, Terada. Your serves are embarrassing.”

Miura snorted. “He’s got you there, Ryugi.”

“Oh, shut up.”

*

After they leave the café, Miura takes them to a cluster of shopping stalls down a wide alley, insisting to Tsukishima that they’ve got some great music a little ways down. Reluctantly, he lets himself be tugged away from the other three, with Shoyo making shooing gestures with his hands when Tsukishima attempts to dig in his heels.

Shoyo and Tadashi follow Terada’s lead, wandering from stall to stall at a leisurely pace, trying on sunglasses and hats and taking pictures of each other. It’s a simple, silly thing, but Shoyo can count on one hand the number of times he’s hung out with Terada without volleyball or studying at the center of their activities. He likes this. It makes him feel like he’s a little older, like high school is a real thing that’s happened.

At one point Shoyo stops to buy a set of hair ties with dragonflies and butterflies on them he thinks Natsu will like. Tadashi purchases a wallet with a volleyball stitched onto it, grinning at Terada and Shoyo with the satisfaction of someone who’s just won.

Terada shakes his head when Tadashi does this, saying, “That’s a little too obsessed for me.”

“What?” Tadashi says. “I need to stay motivated. I’ve only got a few months to improve my jump serves.”

“Sure, _Shoyo._ ”

“Hey,” says Shoyo, laughing.

They stop again in front of a stall selling hair scrunchies and ribbons, Terada announcing loudly that he wants to get a gift for his manager.

Shoyo takes a second to imagine getting a gift for Shimizu and feels his face burn up. Tadashi takes one look at him and bursts out laughing, guessing exactly what crossed his mind.

“Shut up,” Shoyo mutters. “Like you’d be brave enough to get her something.”

“Girls like gifts,” says Tadashi. He’s still chuckling, and pauses to pick up a blue and purple scrunchie. “If you gave her something, I don’t think Shimizu-senpai would say no. If it came from Tanaka-san or Nishinoya-san, on the other hand…”

He could imagine the quick rejection they’d receive easily. “Best not, in case they try to kill me,” says Shoyo. His eyes fall on set of pink polka-dot ribbons. “Maybe I’ll get something for Matsu-chan.”

“Matsukawa?”

Terada returns to stand next to them, a set of three scrunchies in a clear plastic bag, all three different shades of green.

Tadashi makes a sound like a mouse being stepped on.

“Yeah,” says Shoyo. “Have you talked to her lately?”

“I saw her during the preliminaries,” Terada tells him. “We were in the same gym. Not the same block, though. Obviously. She’s not a regular yet but she doesn’t seem too upset about it.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” Terada says, nodding. “She’s still pretty as ever. She’s gotten taller, too. You’d look like a kid next to her.”

Shoyo rolls his eyes before something occurs to him. “If you saw her during the tournament, did you ask her to meet up with us?” he wonders. “Or was she busy?”

“Um…” Terada looks over at Tadashi, puts his hands up helplessly.

“Don’t look at me,” he says.

“What?” Shoyo glances between them. “What is it?”

“Well…” Terada scratches the back of his neck and cringes. “It’s just, you already told Miura that Tsukishima would be coming, so…it wouldn’t be fair to invite Matsukawa, right? She’d just say no anyway.”

Shoyo blinks.

Both of them are acting like there’s something he should already know…wait, no. _Terada_ is acting that way. Tadashi is fidgeting awkwardly, his fingers playing with the hem of his shirt and his cheeks pinked.

“Tadashi,” Shoyo says slowly, “what’s going on?”

“You didn’t tell him?” Terada sounds surprised, then he sighs. “Okay, yeah. No, that makes sense.”

“What makes sense?”

“Last school year,” explains Terada. “Matsukawa asked Tsukishima out.”

The air is punched out of Shoyo’s lungs.

He knows they didn’t go out. Obviously they didn’t. Tsukishima made that very clear. The idea of it still unsettles him, as fresh and horrible as the first time Matsukawa had looked at Tsukishima like she wanted him. That was one feeling Shoyo hadn’t forgotten in his months of denial.

“And?” he manages.

“And he turned her down,” says Tadashi.

Terada laughs. It’s not an amused laugh. “That’s one way of putting it. He was really mean to her. I found her afterwards, crying.”

“When was this?” Shoyo asks.

“About a week before Valentine’s Day.”

Shoyo remembers Valentine’s Day. Matsukawa had given him a cupcake and announced she was going to Niiyama Joshi. _I don’t think Tsukishima will care,_ she’d said, when Shoyo said Tadashi and Tsukishima would be sad to see her go.

He puts a hand to his forehead and groans.

“That jerk,” he says. The word has almost become a term of endearment when it comes to Tsukishima, but Shoyo definitely doesn’t mean it like that right now. “Crap. She was crying?”

“Yeah,” says Terada. “Miura and I talked to him about it. He was kind of an asshole to us.”

Shoyo might be in love with Tsukishima, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to wrap his hands around that jerk’s neck and give it a good long squeeze.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he demands, turning on Tadashi.

“Because, of… _you know,_ ” he says, widening his eyes at Shoyo. “And also, I mean—Matsukawa-san is more your friend than any of ours, and Tsukki gets kind of…weird? About you?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Shoyo snaps.

“I don’t know, Shoyo! If I knew, it wouldn’t be weird.”

“Every time you fight with him and avoid him he gets all fussy,” Terada says bluntly. “It’s a real pain. That one time you two fought over Kageyama Tobio he sulked for weeks. Didn’t talk to anyone.”

“Like he’s mad that you’re mad,” Tadashi supplies. “And he’s mad that he’s mad that you’re mad. So…y’know. Weird.”

This is exactly the sort of thing Shoyo doesn’t want to hear right now, when he’s pissed off at Tsukishima. The idea that he affects Tsukishima, so much so that his friends can finish each other’s thoughts when describing it, has little flutters going off in his chest right next to a low burning, and the two feelings don’t belong together.

Actually, he doesn’t know what he’s feeling. There’s a lot mixed up in him, including things he doesn’t like. Irritation. Anger. Relief. Disappointment. Frustration. Helplessness. Gratitude. That last one, especially, has no place in him at a time like this. Why should he be grateful that Tsukishima turned Matsukawa down? He made her cry! That wasn’t something to be happy about!

Shoyo takes a couple of steps back, trying to clear his head. It proves impossible.

“Hey, um, I’m gonna go home,” he says. “I’ll, um…I’ll see you at school tomorrow, Tadashi. Tell Miura I said goodbye.”

“Shoyo—”

“Hang on—”

Thankfully, Shoyo is faster than either of them. He turns and darts off, running in the direction of the bike rack in front of the café.

He needs time to figure this out, and he can’t do with Tsukishima in front of him. Shoyo isn’t made for complicated emotions like this. He’s always been simple. Easy. Wholehearted. He doesn’t like the way this feels inside him. He doesn’t like any part of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Idk if y'all have read the Odyssey but basically that's me with my fecking computer and this fecking chapter, hahahahaha I'm fine I'm fine everything's fine I'm good anyway next update will be in two weeks :D
> 
> EDIT: Changed from two weeks to three weeks thanks to work trip complications, but uhhhhh I’m still posting on Monday/Tuesday.........with something else


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for waiting an extra week! I'm back from my work trip, so here's my best girl Yachi for y'all...

Shoyo checks his phone for the third time in ten minutes. He feels the soft hum under his skin that has him almost trembling, and the churning in his stomach, and he takes a deep swallow from his already half empty water glass. Drinking water hasn’t helped him calm down, but he keeps drinking it anyway as though that will change.

This is probably a bad idea. Probably. It’s just that, well, Shoyo is spontaneous, and if he sees that something’s wrong, what’s he supposed to do, leave it alone? He does that too often when it comes to Tsukishima already.

Another gulp of water that hurts his throat a little when it goes down, and Shoyo is no closer to relaxing. He checks his phone again. He didn’t get the time wrong, did he?

Off to his left he hears the door open, and Shoyo looks up to see Matsukawa stepping into Sakanoshita Snack Shop, glancing around curiously. He lurches awkwardly to his feet and waves.

Terada was right—Matsukawa is still as pretty as ever. She’s cut her hair sometime in the last few months so that it falls around her chin, though it’s even shorter in the back. She looks more mature, a little closer to striking than she’d been the last time he saw her.

Shoyo is suddenly glad he didn’t buy those polka-dot ribbons for her after all.

Matsukawa catches sight of him and she smiles. It’s warm, but hesitant. Maybe she’s a little nervous, worried that Shoyo has Tsukishima lurking in the shadows or something.

“Matsu-chan!” Shoyo says as she gets closer. “Did you find the place alright?”

“Yeah,” she says, and glances around the shop again. “Um, why are we meeting here?”

“Our coach works here,” he tells her. “It’s his mom’s shop, I think? Family business? But, um, it’s close to your house so I thought… Um, are you hungry?”

She still looks confused, but says, “A little,” and Shoyo takes her to the pork buns. He buys one for himself and one for her from an older man who has the same eyes as Ukai, and they step outside into the warm afternoon.

The air is beginning to smell like summer, the scent of living green things slightly baked in the sun lingering in the lengthening days. Every afternoon Shoyo smells that smell, he knows he’s one day closer to Tokyo and the training camps planned for them. He takes in a deep breath and sighs happily.

“I love this smell,” he hears Matsukawa say, and he looks up at her. Her eyes are closed and her face is slightly upturned as though it will help her catch the scent better.

Shoyo knew he liked her for a reason.

“Wanna take a walk?” he asks. “Or we can sit. Whatever you want. I can walk you home.”

Matsukawa opens her eyes and blinks a few times. “I guess…but hey, where’s your bike?”

“It’s at school,” says Shoyo. “I’m staying over at Tadashi’s tonight.”

Tadashi had agreed instantly when Shoyo had told him what he wanted to do. Although Tadashi’s evenings have been devoted to Shimada’s tutelage lately, he’s been hovering anxiously by Shoyo’s shoulder for the last two days, waiting for him to get mad at Tsukishima or do something that could upset the balance of the team’s first years. Within seconds of Shoyo asking to stay at his house, Tadashi had cancelled his plans with Shimada for the night.

Shoyo doesn’t plan to lash out at Tsukishima or anything like that. In fact, he’s barely spoken to him. Not total radio silence, but not exactly normal for them either. But right now he needs Kageyama to go to Tokyo with the team, which means he needs Tsukishima to help their setter study, which means he can’t get into a fight with the jerk just yet.

So, he went to the other person involved. Shoyo feels like he owes Matsukawa an apology, anyway, though there’s no reason he can put his finger on as to why.

Matsukawa is two bites into her pork bun when Shoyo starts talking, wiping the last of his own snack from his fingers.

“I just found out about what happened between you and Ke—um, Tsukishima.”

She pauses chewing.

“Sorry,” he says. “I timed that wrong.”

She shakes her head and says something that sounds like “it’s okay” from behind a mouth full of food, but Shoyo honestly can’t tell. The twisting in his gut gets a little worse as he waits for Matsukawa to finish chewing.

Finally, she swallows and says, “So you didn’t know,” like she already knew the answer.

“No. Sorry.”

“I wish nobody knew, so don’t be sorry,” Matsukawa tells him. “Who told you?”

“Um. Terada.”

“Figures,” she says, and sighs. “Is that what this is about?”

“Mostly,” says Shoyo, feeling a little guilty. “What happened with you guys? I mean, I really thought you two were…well…sorry, is this too…?”

Matsukawa waves her free hand impatiently. “I’m fine, I’m over it,” she says, dismissing his concern with her tone as much as her hand. “That was _months_ ago. I don’t even like Tsukishima-san anymore. I’m mostly just embarrassed about it? But I’m fine, Hinata, don’t worry about me.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“And, you know,” she goes on, like Shoyo’s just flipped her switch, “he didn’t need to be such a jerk when he turned me down. Just a simple ‘no’ would have been fine. But he made such a big deal about it, like I was trying to force him into something. Excuse me if he was giving me signals and I decided to do something about it!”

Shoyo waves his hands, flustered. “Um, what?”

She sighs. “It’s not a big deal. I’m just annoyed. Boys are so difficult. Um, no offense.”

“None taken,” he tells her. That’s kind of Shoyo’s problem as well. “Do you want to talk about it? I feel kind of responsible, since I introduced you two.”

It’s true, and it’s also not the exact reason he wants to know what happened. He feels a little bad for his lie by omission, but not bad enough to not do it.

Matsukawa smiles warmly, and says: “Sure.”

*

By the time Shoyo has walked her home and headed off toward Tadashi’s, he has a much clearer idea of what happened between Tsukishima and Matsukawa, though he still doesn’t totally understand it. Knowing that he’d been right, and the two of them had been moving toward a relationship, isn’t exactly a great feeling. Neither is the relief that they hadn’t worked out, though after a few days that isn’t so new to Shoyo anymore.

He’s also more annoyed with Tsukishima than he had been before. Shoyo had been hoping for the opposite effect, that he would find out exactly what happened from Matsukawa and would be able to think “yeah, I can see how that happened,” but instead he’s just…frustrated, really.

He arrives at Tadashi’s house to find his friend anxiously waiting in front of the foyer. Shoyo feels so tired all of a sudden.

“Everything okay?”

“Not really,” Shoyo says. “Can we talk about this tomorrow?”

“O-of course!” Tadashi stammers. “But, um…things with Tsukki…”

Shoyo heaves a sigh. “I’ll talk to him,” he promises. “Soon.”

*

He doesn’t talk to Tsukishima soon.

That’s not entirely Shoyo’s fault. Ever since they lost to Seijou, a fire has been lit under the entire team, and in the small moments when they’re not practicing or discussing strategy, everyone is studying for exams.

Which isn’t to say they don’t talk, because they do. Little conversations, like when Ukai informed Shoyo and Tsukishima that their blocks needed to get good enough to block Ushijima and Tsukishima expressed his total disbelief that either of them could manage that. Even smaller conversations, when Tsukishima asks Shoyo if he’s going to stay over at his house and Shoyo says he can’t.

He knows this isn’t fair to Tsukishima, who’s started to look at Shoyo like he’s waiting for a fight. He also doesn’t know how to say what he wants to without picking that fight.

Things go on like this for a week, and are dangerously close to falling into a rhythm, when Shimizu arrives at practice still in her school uniform instead of her tracksuit and asks for the team’s attention.

Shoyo stares as a small girl peers from behind Shimizu, moving like a malfunctioning robot with a face that clearly says she did not expect to be confronted by twelve boys, several of which look more like punks than school athletes.

It takes a second for Shoyo to get it.

“You found someone!” he exclaims.

This has Noya and Tanaka running over, which has the girl looking even more terrified.

“She’ll be joining us on a trial basis as a potential new manager,” Shimizu says, sounding a little more authoritative than she usually does as she subtly puts herself between the girl and the two second years.

The girl gulps. “Um!” she squeaks out. “I’m…Yachi Hitoka!”

Her voice is high and soft, and now that Shoyo is paying attention, he sees she has a hair accessory with little stars on it. It’s cute. She’s cute.

“Are you a first year?” Azumane asks. He looks like a bear looming over its prey.

“Um! I-I-I am, yes! I am in class 1-5, yes!”

Shoyo tries not to laugh as Sawamura pushes the clueless Azumane away from Yachi, but can’t quite hold it in when he sees Sugawara glance behind him and see Tanaka and Noya lurking over his shoulders. He’s forgotten how bad boys are at talking to girls normally.

Well, when it comes to Shimizu, Shoyo isn’t any better. But that’s an exception.

After Yachi leaves, Shoyo feels a little buoyant. He grins at Shimizu, who smiles back at him and causes his heart to spasm uncontrollably.

He turns to see Tadashi still staring at the place where Yachi had been, his cheeks flushed slightly.

“You okay?” Shoyo asks.

“She’s cute,” says Tadashi.

Shoyo is about to agree when he realizes that his assessment of Yachi’s cuteness is not the same as Tadashi’s. He thinks Yachi Hitoka is cute in the way most girls are, while Tadashi, apparently, thinks she’s cute in the way most girls aren’t.

He glances to Tsukishima (always, and endlessly, Shoyo knows where he is, a small part of his mind is always tracking Tsukishima’s presence) and sees him frowning a little as he observes Tadashi. His eyes flicker to Shoyo’s after a second.

*

The next day at the beginning of lunch, Kageyama pokes his head into Shoyo’s classroom with a sheepish frown. Shoyo excuses himself from the conversation about their school’s baseball team he’s been having with his classmates and bounds over to the doorway.

Kageyama glares down at the textbook he’s holding. “I don’t get it,” he mutters. “I have a test after lunch.”

Shoyo knows what Kageyama is really trying to say, which is “please talk to Tsukishima for me.”

He absolutely doesn’t want to go out of his way to find Tsukishima, but if they’re going to go to Tokyo, he probably doesn’t have a choice.

Probably.

On a whim, Shoyo pulls out his phone and texts Tadashi.

_Can you help Kageyama with English?_

The reply that comes back to him within twenty seconds is short and predictable.

_Why aren’t you asking Tsukki?_

_He’s said he won’t help Kageyama during lunch._

Shoyo is almost completely positive that, if he were on better terms with Tsukishima at the moment, he could ask his friend to make an exception and Tsukishima would. After a little needling and begging, maybe, but it would happen. He suspects that if he went today Tsukishima would just snap at him and they would end up having that fight Shoyo’s been trying so hard to avoid.

 _You know I’m no good at English,_ comes the text from Tadashi, and Shoyo sighs.

He looks up at Kageyama. “Sorry, I don’t think—”

His phone chimes again, and Shoyo glances down in surprise to see a follow up text from Tadashi.

_That girl, Yachi-san, said she was in class 1-5. She might be really good at English, you should ask her._

Shoyo remembers, then, that classes 4 and 5 are on the advanced track. He’d known that, because Tsukishima is in class 4, but he’d been more interested in how Yachi had nervously stammered out her reply to Azumane and it hadn’t clicked then.

Of course Tadashi remembered what she actually said, not just how she said it.

“Come on!” Shoyo says to Kageyama, and takes off down the hallway at a fast walk. He closes the conversation with Tadashi and, right before he puts his phone away, he sees the text he sent to Kenma the night before.

They’ve got to make it to Tokyo, he thinks. If he has to drag Kageyama to anyone and everyone who might be able to help him pass his exams, then that’s what he’ll do. Even if it feels, just a little bit, like he’s cheating on Tsukishima.

*

They find Yachi eating lunch in her classroom, where she readily agrees to help them. After the initial nervousness that she’d displayed yesterday, she calms down enough to talk to Shoyo normally and quickly eases into reviewing the material Kageyama is struggling with, which turns out to be most of it.

Yachi has an easy way of explaining things, Shoyo quickly learns. She’s patient and willing to go over one problem over and over again, though the way she teaches makes things startlingly clear. Even though Shoyo only came to her classroom for Kageyama’s sake, he finds himself asking Yachi questions about English grammar that he’s been having a hard time learning, even with Tsukishima’s assistance.

The way Yachi sorts her notes reminds Shoyo of the game plays Ukai puts up on the boards. They’re color coded, simple, and concise.

A couple of times she asks questions about volleyball, and Shoyo excitedly tells her about the upcoming trip to Tokyo when Yachi asks why they’re studying so hard. He can see he’s losing her as he describes some of the Nekoma players, but talking to Yachi is surprisingly natural and the words just trip off his tongue.

When lunch ends, Yachi offers to help both of them study after practice, which Shoyo thanks her for enthusiastically. Before, Shoyo was excited just to have a new manager. Now, he wants it to be Yachi. He already sees himself being on the same team as her for the next three years.

*

When Shoyo spots Yachi lurking outside the gym door at the beginning of afternoon practice, he waves to her immediately.

“Yachi-san!” he calls, and she starts, all her nervousness of the day before returning in a flash.

She edges into the gym, and Shoyo can see she’s wearing her maroon tracksuit. Privately, he thinks she’ll look much better in the all-black uniform that Shimizu wears to practice.

“Guess what?” he says, hoping to put her at ease. “There was a pop quiz in English class after lunch, and I got the best score I’ve ever gotten! You really helped me out!”

Her face lights up and she immediately bounds over to him.

“That’s so great!”

“Yeah!”

Yachi looks ready to say something else, but she freezes again when she catches sight of something over Shoyo’s shoulder. Shoyo turns and see Tsukishima glowering at them.

He sighs and turns back to Yachi. “Don’t mind him,” he says quietly.

“Um…okay,” she agrees.

“Are you just watching today?”

“Y-yeah.”

“You should ask Shimizu-san if you don’t understand any of the rules,” Shoyo tells her. “She knows everything about the game. She’s really smart.”

Yachi glances over at Shimizu and turns a little pink, and Shoyo understands immediately that Yachi agreed to try out the manager’s position because of who was asking. He wonders if Yachi just likes girls, or if she’s bisexual, like him.

He doesn’t ask, of course. Just smiles widely at her and walks her over to Shimizu before he begins his stretches.

Yachi doesn’t seem to be scared off by their practice, though when Shoyo glances over at her every so often she seems a bit alarmed. Once he has to save her from a stray ball.

After practice ends and he changes out of his sweaty clothes, he spots Yachi waiting outside the gym, distracted by something. She’s gotten changed too, and Shoyo makes a beeline for her.

“So?” he prompts, to excited by Ukai’s announcement of a practice match tomorrow to approach her calmly. “Are you going to be our new manager?”

“Um—”

“Are you?”

Yachi opens her mouth, but before she can muster a reply, Shoyo hears a throat clear behind him.

“Hey, first year girl,” Noya says loudly, “you should definitely join the Karasuno volleyball team as our manager.”

“Huh?” Yachi squeaks.

Shoyo turns to see Tanaka and Noya standing shoulder to shoulder—or, as much as they can, considering their height difference—and looking disgustingly determined.

“Yeah,” Tanaka says. “When you’re around, Kiyoko-san talks a lot more than usual.”

“That’s not how you invite someone to join the club!” barks Sawamura, coming up behind them with the rest of the team in tow.

Sugawara pushes past the two idiots to reach out a soothing hand toward Yachi. “Don’t mind them,” he says. “They’re just stupid.”

“Oh, no!” Yachi says, and rubs the back of her neck awkwardly. “I’m actually really flattered! I’ve…never actually done something like this before. Um. I’ve never thought that people wanted me for things like this… Even in school plays, I was always minor parts like Villager B… or a tree…”

“You’d make a good tree.”

Shoyo’s heart drops into his stomach as Tsukishima speaks up. He watches in mute horror as Tsukishima pastes a sneer onto his mouth and uses his considerable height to look down on Yachi.

“Yeah,” he goes on, “I can see why you’ve been a tree. You’re kind of a background character, aren’t you? But they have to give you something to do so you don’t step on other people’s cues.”

“Tsukishima!” Sawamura snaps.

Tsukishima stops talking, but he smirks with satisfaction as Yachi’s shoulders drop.

“I know Shimizu-san is super happy to have you,” Shoyo says. He shoots a glare at Tsukishima. “Did you almost faint when she talked to you? I almost fainted once.”

A smile wobbles into place on Yachi’s lips. “Almost,” she admits. “I couldn’t believe someone like that was talking to me… I kind of just followed her.”

“I know what you mean,” Tanaka says seriously. “If Kiyoko-san told me she was going to rob me and leave me in a ditch, I’d still follow her in a heartbeat.”

“Um…what?” Yachi squeaks.

“So cool,” says Shoyo, as Noya says:

“That’s so manly, Ryu.”

The conversation devolves into chatter about Shimizu, mostly led by Tanaka and Noya. Shoyo breathes a small sigh of relief before he exchanges a look with Tadashi. His friend is pale under his freckles and keeps glancing toward Tsukishima.

Shoyo knows he can’t put it off anymore. He makes sure Yachi is comfortable next to the calming presence of Sugawara before he stomps over to Tsukishima.

“I’m staying at your house tonight,” he announces.

Tsukishima blinks down at him. “…What?”

“Tonight,” Shoyo repeats. “I’m staying over. I can, right?”

“Yeah…” Tsukishima frowns a little, his eyes sliding over to Yachi for a second. “But—”

“Can you let your mom know?”

“…Yeah. Okay.”

Tsukishima takes out his phone and starts tapping it, and Shoyo takes a deep breath.

If he doesn’t murder Tsukishima tonight, then he’ll be really proud of himself.

*

Shoyo waits until Tsukishima shuts the door to his room, closing them both inside, before he says anything. He doesn’t need to wait until then for privacy, since Tsukishima’s mother is out for the next hour, but it feels like this room is their space.

And the second the door clicks shut, Shoyo says, “You can’t ever talk to Yachi-san like that again.”

Tsukishima stills with his hand still on the door. “Oh?”

“You absolutely can’t.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah, it is.”

Abruptly, Tsukishima turns toward him, his face pinched into a sour look. “Sorry,” he says sharply. “I guess I won’t, anymore.”

“But you’re not sorry,” says Shoyo. “You’re going to do it again.”

“Hah?”

“I’m telling you that you can’t do that,” he insists. “It’s not okay for you to treat her that way. She’s shy, and we all want her to be our new manager, and she’s not going to stick around if you talk to her the way you did today.”

Tsukishima tilts his head and smirks. “I wasn’t that awful to—”

Shoyo cuts him off. “Stop that,” he says. “Can you just be honest right now? I’m really annoyed with you, okay?”

“Fine.” The sly look drops off Tsukishima’s face, and he just looks sullen. “You don’t want me to act like myself in front of her. I can do that.”

_Jeez._

“You’re not a bad person with me and Tadashi,” Shoyo tells him. “You don’t pick fights with us. And you tease our senpai, but you aren’t mean to them, either. So why Kageyama and Yachi-san?”

Tsukishima crosses the room and takes a seat on his bed and folds his arms over his chest. He’s like a kid pouting after being scolded.

“You’re the one who’s been avoiding me the last two weeks,” Tsukishima mutters.

“What does that have to do with anything?” demands Shoyo. “That’s because—I’ve been avoiding you because I found out what you did to Matsu-chan, and you know what, why were you so rude to her when you rejected her, anyway?”

“When did this become about Matsukawa?”

“It didn’t! I just—that’s why I was avoiding you! I didn’t want to get into a fight, but too bad for me, you make it really easy sometimes!”

Tsukishima folds his arms a little tighter around his chest.

Shoyo almost feels bad about this. If he was just a little less irritated, a little less tired, he could find a way to do this without slamming all his feelings at Tsukishima at once.

“I’m asking you,” he says, calmly as he can, “to stop being rude to Yachi-san. She’s nice, she’s willing to help Kageyama study, which means you spend less time outside of practice with him, and if you stopped hating her just because Tadashi and I get along with her I think you’d like her too.”

Tsukishima says something so quietly that Shoyo can’t catch it.

“Huh?”

“…don’t need…”

“I can’t hear you,” Shoyo snaps. “If you don’t tell me what it is I can’t do anything about it.”

Tsukishima glares at him harder than he has since before they became friends. “I _said,_ must be nice to have a new study partner,” he spits out. “So, I guess you don’t need me anymore.”

“ _Jeez,_ ” groans Shoyo. He clenches his fingers in his hair. “You’re such a pain!”

“I don’t want to hear that from you!”

“What kind of a friend do you think I am?” he demands.

“Well, since you said she’s a better tutor than—”

“Kei,” Shoyo says loudly.

He’s in no mood to add an endearment to Tsukishima’s name at the moment, and leaving that one syllable hanging in the air all alone makes the room oddly charged. Tsukishima’s eyes are still sharp and hard as they stare down Shoyo, but his mouth stays clamped shut.

“Kei,” says Shoyo again, “I’m not friends with you because you help me study. That’s not why we became friends, remember? That started way before we got along. And even if that was how it started, I wouldn’t be your friend just because you’re useful to me. I’m friends with you because I like you. That’s how friendship _works._ ”

Even in this moment, saying he likes Tsukishima leaves Shoyo shaking a little. The context doesn’t matter, it still feels like he’s owning up to a small piece of his feelings.

“It’s not like…” Tsukishima looks down. “I don’t think you’re going to…”

“I like being friends with people,” he goes on. He tries to make his voice a little gentler now, but it’s difficult. “It’s fun for me. I know it’s hard for you, but for me, it’s easy to make friends. That’s who I am, okay? You can’t get mad at everyone I make friends with.”

“I don’t.”

Shoyo blinks. “So then why are you so mean to Kageyama? And why were you so mean to Matsukawa and, you know what, I never found out why you fought with Sayuki—”

“You look at Kageyama like he’s the best person you’ve ever seen,” Tsukishima says. “You guys act like you’re best friends. Even before you met him, you were obsessed with him. And…when you guys met you didn’t get along which is what happened when…”

There’s a long stretch of silence as Tsukishima grabs a pillow from the head of his bed and hugs it to his chest, and Shoyo tries to puzzle out what he’s trying to say while trying to process the unusual vulnerability of Tsukishima. Shoyo’s never seen him hug a pillow, or watched his shoulders cave in.

“Because we didn’t get along when we met,” Shoyo realizes. He tilts his head. “You think Kageyama’s going to replace you?”

Tsukishima doesn’t respond.

 _I didn’t think I was that important to you,_ Shoyo wants to say. His head feels so light, and he’s kind of dizzy. It’s hard to breathe with his heart hammering so hard in his chest.

For almost two years now, Tsukishima has been rooting inside him, making himself at home in Shoyo with no regard for what Shoyo wants. His importance looms larger than so much else, and Shoyo has spent so much time acting like Tsukishima doesn’t shake him to his core that he hasn’t thought about how he affects Tsukishima.

He thinks about it now.

This entire time, he’s believed that, while Shoyo sees Tsukishima and Tadashi as his best friends, Tsukishima has ranked Shoyo far below Tadashi. He definitely views Shoyo as his friend, but it’s always seemed like Tadashi came first, and Shoyo had bitterly resigned himself to that reality.

But here is Tsukishima, huddled around a pillow, clearly worried that Shoyo views their friendship as unimportant, childish and defensive when he thinks he comes in second place.

In fact, as Shoyo examines all the possessive jealousy Tsukishima’s displayed since high school began—no, even before then, it started in third year of junior high—he’s surprised he hasn’t seen it before. There have been touches, words, arguments that don’t make sense unless he sees them as Tsukishima obsessively guarding Shoyo like a belonging, a dragon warning others away from its treasure.

It’s tempting, so very tempting, to take in this revelation as though Tsukishima isn’t just looking at Shoyo as a friend. Shoyo knows this is because Tsukishima is, by his own admission, not good at having friends. A part of him still wants there to be another element all the same.

That isn’t something he can dwell on right now.

Shoyo makes his way to Tsukishima’s bed and sits next to him, crossing his legs and facing Tsukishima with his hands on his knees. After a moment, Tsukishima moves to mirror him and lowers the pillow onto his lap.

“You know you’re my best friend, right?” he says. “You and Tadashi. You’re my best friends. I’m not going to trade you out, you know?”

After a long pause, Tsukishima says, “Right.” It comes out terse, but Shoyo watches Tsukishima’s shoulders straighten and relax, watches his fingers loosen their grip on the pillow’s edges.

“Anyway, you’re kind of irreplaceable,” Shoyo tells him. He forces his tone to lighten as he admits, “I couldn’t stop liking you even if I tried. So you’re stuck with me.”

“Thanks.” Tsukishima looks up and meets his eyes. “You’re my best friend, too. Yamaguchi, too, but… you’re stuck with me, too.”

Shoyo looks at those bright eyes and all he wants to do is reach out and run his fingers through Tsukishima’s hair, pull him close, and kiss him over and over again. He wants to feel the skin of Tsukishima’s neck under his fingertips and the frames of his glasses poking into his cheek. He absolutely cannot do that. He feels like he’ll explode if he doesn’t.

“So you’ll stop being rude to Yachi-san?” Shoyo presses, the question his lifeline to sanity.

“Yeah. Okay, yeah, I will.”

Tsukishima looks at Shoyo like he’s waiting for something else, but Shoyo can’t tell what it is he wants, and Tsukishima doesn’t tell him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I, uh, came kind of close to saying "screw it" and have these two idiots kiss already, but like...I have a plan and I gotta stick to it...but after this fic is finished someone come bug me for an AU where Hinata totally jumps Tsukki after that whole "friends" convo, lmao.
> 
> If you haven't checked out my other WIP Drift, I would be so happy if you did! It's established tsukihina so if the lack of romantic progress in Bitter Pills is getting you down, this might be a good alternative!


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate this chapter, but it's mutual, so I might be biased. Why was this so hard to write? Why are there 8Kish words of absolute garbage left over from a 5Kish word chapter? Why did I decide to write a slow burn? So many questions! No answers! Let's get to it, people!

“That was amazing!” Yachi says after the practice match the next day. Her eyes are large and glittering, and a pink flush colors her cheeks. “Amazingly amazing!”

“Like gwah?” Shoyo asks, vibrating a little. He’s still buzzed from winning the practice match, and the stars in Yachi’s eyes are only elevating his high.

“Yeah! Yeah, like gwah!” She looks like she’s about to levitate.

“Then be our manager!”

“You guys know you’re making no sense, right,” Tsukishima says as he and Tadashi walk by.

Yachi tenses for a moment before giving Tsukishima a uneasy smile. At the beginning of practice, Shoyo had made Tsukishima apologize to Yachi. It had been awkward and uncomfortable to watch, but Shoyo could tell it was sincere. That was all he could ask for.

Tadashi, who’s a half-step behind Tsukishima, catches the full force of Yachi’s nervous grin and looks a little concerned, though he turns a light shade of pink behind his freckles. He almost stops, but Tsukishima continues toward the supply room without pausing and Tadashi has to scramble to keep up with him.

“Ah, but…” Yachi says, and Shoyo’s attention wrenches back to her from Tsukishima’s back. “I’ve never really played any sports, and um, not with a team this good, so I’d only be in the way…”

“Huh?” says Shoyo. “That’s not true! And anyway, no one knows anything about anything until they learn.”

“…What?”

“I didn’t start playing volleyball until three years ago,” he tries to explain. “And before that I didn’t know anything about it, except that it was cool and it got me excited! And Yachi-san, you’re really smart, so you can learn anything, right?”

Yachi goes very red. “Um… that’s…”

Shoyo bounds closer to her. “If you got that excited after a match,” he insists, “that’s enough.”

*

After that conversation, Shoyo thinks Yachi is ready to sign on as official team manager. Unfortunately, he hadn’t counted on Yachi’s mother. Yachi shows up to practice the next day looking dejected and lacking confidence again.

Shoyo doesn’t like avoiding confrontation—his relationship with Tsukishima an exception—so he encourages Yachi to tell her mother what she’s feeling. He ends up grabbing her hand and pulling Yachi to where she says her mother works at top speed once practice is over, realizing only afterward that she probably doesn’t run that fast on her own regularly.

Nevertheless, he watches with pride as Yachi shouts at the top of her lungs her intentions to join the volleyball club. Yachi’s mother, a beautiful woman with hair curled like a corkscrew, looks shocked but not displeased by her daughter yelling from across the street. When Yachi looks back at Shoyo with a grin lighting up her entire face, he gives her a thumbs up.

“That was really cool,” he tells her, and she blushes a little.

“Really?”

“Yeah!”

It’s strange, but Shoyo feels like he’s been waiting for Yachi Hitoka this entire time. Like their team hasn’t been complete until she showed up. She’s a little weird, but so is everyone else Shoyo is friends with, and so is he, so it doesn’t matter.

“Um… Hinata?” she says. “Can you do me a favor? You and Kageyama-kun?”

Yachi reaches to her left like she’s about to rummage in her bag, only they left school without it. She looks up at him, panicked.

“Let’s head back,” he suggests. “I left my bike at school.”

“Okay.”

“So what’s the favor?”

She turns pink again and reaches up to scratch lightly at her cheek with one finger. Shoyo sees that her nails have little daisies painted on them, so light they wouldn’t be noticed unless someone was paying attention. It’s cute, he thinks, and he wonders if Natsu is old enough to like getting her nails painted.

“Ah, that’s…um, poster.” Yachi clears her throat. “I’m thinking of making a poster, because…well, I overhead Takeda-sensei say there might not be enough funds for the summer trips and if I made a poster asking for donations—um! Please forget I said that! I don’t think Takeda-sensei meant for the team to know!”

Shoyo blinks. “Oh. Okay.”

“So…I was thinking of making a poster,” she says again, “so could I take pictures of you doing that, um…is it called spiking?”

“Ah! Sure,” he says. “That’s so cool, I get to be on a poster!”

They take the pictures when they get back to the gym, since Kageyama has, unsurprisingly, stayed behind for solitary practice.

A few days later, Shoyo is biking through town on his way home when he sees a giant poster in a store window. “Another Little Giant Takes to the Skies,” it reads, and Shoyo feels a jolt of excitement run up his spine.

*

Only a couple days after that, and less than a week before finals, the team officially salutes Yachi with an official black jersey and a chorus of “welcome to the Karasuno boys’ volleyball club!” that has her grinning and blushing next to Shimizu.

“Thank you for having me!” she squeaks out.

Shoyo kind of wishes she’d yell the way she did to her mother, at top volume, but he won’t push. Yachi is different from Tsukishima in a lot of ways but he’s realized they’re both shy and awkward in large groups. Maybe one day Yachi will be confident enough to shout in front of the team. He hopes so.

“All right! There are only a few more days left until our first trip to Tokyo,” Sawamura says. “All that’s left to do is final exams.”

Noya, Tanaka, and Kageyama go pale.

“Don’t stop breathing!” snaps Sawamura.

“Ah! Kageyama-kun, I’ll help you study this weekend,” Yachi says brightly, if a bit urgently, as Kageyama’s face starts to turn blue from lack of oxygen. “Hinata, do you want to join us?”

He shakes his head. “I’m going to study with Kei,” he says.

Truthfully, Shoyo thinks he’ll get better grades if he studies with Yachi. She has a natural gift for teaching, and she’s much more patient than Tsukishima on his best day. But Shoyo has probably pushed Tsukishima to his limit over the past week as he’s spent most of his time with Yachi.

It’s still weird for Shoyo, this new understanding of his friendship with Tsukishima. He’s never thought of Tsukishima as fragile before, but that’s how Shoyo’s been treating him ever since their talk.

Yachi’s smile comes out strained. “Oh, then…that’s fine,” she says, and looks over nervously at Kageyama.

There’s a second of confusion where Shoyo has no idea what’s going on, then he understands. Yachi has never been alone with Kageyama before. All the other times she’s helped him study, Shoyo has been there, and Yachi’s flinched every time a new frown has bunched Kageyama’s brows.

“He just looks like he’s angry all the time,” Shoyo tells her. “Really, his face is stuck like that most of the time. Kageyama’s an idiot but he’s not mean. Not on purpose. You’ll be fine.”

“If you say so…” Yachi says doubtfully, but she already looks more relaxed.

Shoyo grins at her and turns around to confirm his study plans with Tsukishima, only to see Tadashi right behind him. He jumps back a little, startled.

“Sorry!” says Tadashi, but he’s snickering a little.

“What’s up?” Shoyo asks.

“Stay over at my house this weekend,” Tadashi says. “I already asked Tsukki, too. It’s been a while since it’s been the three of us.”

“Don’t you have your practice with Shimada-san?”

Tadashi shakes his head. “Not until finals are over.”

“Oh. Um, okay! I just gotta get my stuff from Kei’s house!”

It actually might be better like this, Shoyo thinks as he walks behind Tadashi and Tsukishima on their way home. The two of them are laughing about something that happened in practice, but Shoyo can’t hear what they’re saying over the creak of his bike’s wheels and his own thoughts. Tadashi’s right; it has been a while. And Shoyo’s struggling a little.

A part of him has always wanted to kiss Tsukishima. It’s been white noise in the back of his mind that he’s been able to tune out, or shout down when it’s gotten too loud. That Shoyo has been so successful at ignoring it is probably half the reason he managed to convince himself for almost half a year that he’d gotten over his crush.

After the talk they had last week, though, there’s been no escape. It’s manageable when they’re around other people but on the rare times they’ve been alone since then the urge is so strong Shoyo feels like he’s going to fly apart at the seams if he doesn’t kiss Tsukishima, a magnet resisting its opposite in a losing battle. He feels like he’ll go crazy if he spends an entire weekend with just the two of them.

So it’s better that they’ll be at Tadashi’s house, where there aren’t cute dinosaurs everywhere and a reminder of all the charged moments where Shoyo had to physically restrain himself from making a move he can’t take back.

Was this how Itagaki felt? When Itagaki kissed him, had it been after weeks and weeks of holding himself back until he just couldn’t anymore? If so, Shoyo feels some sympathy for his senpai for perhaps the first time.

“Let’s get your stuff.”

Shoyo jerks to a stop and looks up at Tsukishima and Tadashi, who have stopped walking and are staring down at him expectantly.

“Huh?” he says stupidly.

“Your stuff,” Tsukishima repeats, eyes narrow behind his glasses. “Come on. Yamaguchi can watch your bike.”

“Oh…” Shoyo glances at Tadashi, who nods encouragingly and reaches out to take the bike handles from Shoyo. “Yeah, let’s go.”

*

It’s a good weekend.

Obviously, they study, and most of Saturday is taken up by volleyball practice. But in between all that, Tadashi, Tsukishima, and Shoyo play video games and watch funny animal videos. And they talk. Not about important things, not serious topics, just the stupid things their classmates have done since school started, or about volleyball. It feels nostalgic even though Shoyo’s never done this with both Tsukishima and Tadashi before.

At night, Shoyo makes sure Tadashi is sleeping between them—he doesn’t know what he’d do if he woke up with Tsukishima’s face right next to his—and during the day, the two of them are never alone, but Shoyo isn’t ignoring or avoiding Tsukishima anymore.

*

Monday morning, the first day of final exams, Shoyo wakes up buzzing. He’s the first one up, and—unable to stay still—he goes for a half-hour run around Tadashi’s neighborhood. At one point he passes Tsukishima’s house and feels an irritating squeeze in his chest, which is stupid, because Tsukishima stayed over at Tadashi’s just like Shoyo and isn’t even _in_ his house.

When he gets back he sees Tadashi and Tsukishima are just starting to move around in their futons. Shoyo showers, dresses, and heads downstairs to help Tadashi’s mother finish making breakfast.

He feels ready for finals. He feels prepared, if not for amazing scores, then for passing grades.

He’s less prepared for what he sees in the gym when the three of them arrive for morning practice.

“…completely irresponsible, stupid, boneheaded move!” Sawamura is shouting, his hands balled into fists and legs planted firmly apart. “You could have jeopardized our trips to Tokyo!”

In front of him is Kageyama, sitting up properly with his head bowed as he takes the scolding, dressed in his school uniform instead of gym clothes. Shoyo can’t see his face, but he’s guessing from the way Kageyama’s shoulders curve inward that the frown he’s wearing is the I’m-embarrassed-and-ashamed kind, with maybe a little bit of the so-what-if-I-did frown mixed in.

“If the vice-principal decides this was too much, you could be suspended from the team,” Sawamura continues, but is interrupted by a snort-laugh from his right.

“I can’t breathe,” wheezes Sugawara. When Shoyo looks at him more closely, he sees Sugawara has tears in his eyes. He’s clutching his stomach like he’s been laughing for a while.

“Suga!”

“Whaaaaat, it’s funny!”

“He really stepped in it, Suga! This isn’t the time to be laughing!”

Shoyo jogs over to Ennoshita, who’s standing far enough away that he’s not in the immediate blast zone of their captain’s fury.

“What happened?” he asks, and hears Tsukishima and Tadashi come up behind him.

Ennoshita puts a hand over his mouth that doesn’t manage to hide his smile completely. “Um, apparently Kageyama ran into Ushiwaka on the street outside Yacchan’s place yesterday,” he says. “Yacchan says he asked Ushiwaka if he could follow him and observe Shiratorizawa’s practice, and Ushiwaka said yes…”

“Oh, no,” says Shoyo, peeking over at where Sawamura is shouting at both Sugawara and Kageyama.

“No, that’s not the problem,” Ennoshita says. Bubbles of laughter begin erupting out of him as he explains, “Kageyama followed Ushiwaka onto the Shiratorizawa campus, except he… he got lost… for about four hours? And, uh… haha, um, the dorm staff had to escort… escort him off the campus...”

As one, Tadashi and Tsukishima burst into loud cackling.

“You guys, no!” Shoyo says, but as he imagines a sulky Kageyama getting led away from a fancy boarding school, it’s hard not to join in. He shouldn’t laugh.

…Kageyama must have looked so stupid.

“What an _idiot,_ ” Tsukishima crows. Next to him, Tadashi can’t summon up enough composure to talk.

Ennoshita clears his throat a few times and manages to get ahold of himself. “Take-chan is talking with the vice-principal now,” he says, wiping at his eyes. “Shiratorizawa called and complained, but since Ushiwaka technically invited him they can’t do much more than that. It’s just up to the vice-principal or not whether this changes any of our summer plans.”

That sobers any urge Shoyo has to join in the laughter. “Will it?”

“Probably not,” Ennoshita says, shrugging. “But…can you imagine the look on the dorm staff’s faces when they found Kageyama by the stables?”

“They have _stables?_ ” says Shoyo, at the same time Tsukishima says: “They found him by the _stables?_ ” Tsukishima breaks into a fresh peal of laughter and actually takes his glasses off to wipe at his face.

“What are you four doing over there?” Sawamura shouts, and Shoyo looks over to see the captain is now glaring right at him. Shoyo feels a rush of cold fear run down his spine all the way to his fingers and toes. “Go run laps!”

Ennoshita puts a hand on Shoyo’s shoulder. “Daichi-san’s scary when he’s mad,” he says, as if Shoyo has never heard this fact before, or witnessed it with his own eyes. “Let’s leave him to it. He’s got enough to deal with.”

“This is the best day of my life,” Tsukishima says as they change into their outdoor shoes.

*

When Shoyo gets his exams results a few days later, he’s privately relieved to find he’s passed everything with at least 70% in each class. The night before, he’d had a dream where, as he was turning in his English test, he’d noticed that all of his answers were off by one line on the answer sheet. Shoyo had woken up in a cold sweat and didn’t calm down until the graded test was handed back to him.

“Wow,” Sugawara says as he examines Shoyo’s grades in the club room. “This is actually pretty impressive. I didn’t know you scored this high.”

“Hey!”

“Sorry, sorry,” says Sugawara, not sounding sorry at all. “Well, good work, Hinata. Now it’s just the problem children we need to worry—”

The club room door bursts open so hard that when it slams against the wall it feels like the entire building shudders.

“I,” says Tanaka, his chest thrown out and his grin a shark-like triumph, “am amazing.”

“You passed?” Shoyo asks excitedly.

“I passed!”

“Everything?”

Tanaka narrows his eyes at Sugawara. “Of course _everything,_ Suga-san!”

Ennoshita and Narita appear over Tanaka’s shoulders and push him out of the doorway and into the room. Tanaka stumbles and nearly veers into Shoyo before righting himself.

“Is he bragging?” asks Narita. “He was bragging the entire way here, and then he ran ahead of us to tell everyone already here that he passed.”

“As if those grades would be worth bragging about under any other circumstance,” adds Ennoshita.

“You guys are the worst,” Tanaka says, and turns to Shoyo. “Hey, Hinata, it’s pretty impressive, right? I passed everything, that makes me a cool senpai, right?”

Shoyo wordlessly holds up his exams like a fan so all of his scores are visible.

“Why can’t you just be stupid?” complains Tanaka, and turns to his fellow second years. “Where’s Kageya—oh.”

Shoyo looks to where Tanaka’s eyes have landed and sees Tadashi gently steering Kageyama into the club room from behind. The only reason Shoyo knows it’s Kageyama and not a shambling zombie is the exam clutched in his hand. Shoyo’s pretty sure zombies don’t pay attention to exams.

Tadashi gives a nervous laugh. “We found him wandering around the gym,” he says. “He was scaring a couple of the softball girls so we brought him here, but he’s not responding.”

“Is he breathing?” Sugawara asks as he gets to his feet.

Tsukishima fills the doorway behind Tadashi. “Barely,” he reports, and poorly hides a small snicker. His eyes finds Shoyo’s, and Shoyo gives him a thumbs up and a wide grin. Tsukishima flashes him an approving smile that has Shoyo’s stomach doing backflips.

With help from Sugawara, Tadashi gets Kageyama seated on the floor and pries the exam out of his half-limp hand. They all crowd around Tadashi and look at the bright red “38” scrawled at the top.

Ennoshita sucks in a breath. “That’s gotta sting,” he says.

“Oh, jeez,” agrees Tadashi. “Two below the passing mark…and hang on, isn’t this for Modern Lit?”

Shoyo’s kind of impressed at the level of detachment Kageyama has achieved. If it were him, he’d die of mortification as their teammates saw Kageyama’s failing mark, let alone rifle through the pages to see how many answers were wrong for each section. It continues to get passed around as the rest of the team arrives, including an entrance by Noya that is almost identical to Tanaka’s.

“Well, don’t get too worked up about it,” says Sugawara gently, passing the test to Sawamura. “This isn’t our only trip to Tokyo this summer, so—”

“It’s fine,” Kageyama says mechanically. “I will run to Tokyo after I finish my make-up test.”

“What the hell?” Azumane mutters, sounding a little horrified.

Shoyo almost wants it to happen, because if Kageyama got lost on a campus he’ll definitely charge straight into the ocean or something on his way to Tokyo. As funny as it sounds, though…

“Oy, Kageyama, don’t be stupid,” he says. “Just wait for the next training camp!”

Kageyama shoots him a glare—the first sign of emotion he’s displayed today other than numb despair. “Dumbass,” he says. “If you failed, would you skip any part of the Tokyo trip that you didn’t absolutely have to? Huh?”

…Honestly, no. Shoyo would probably bike the whole way there.

“Listen,” Tanaka says, stepping forward. “I have a solution for you.”

*

“Eh? Shoyo,” Kenma says. He lowers his water bottle and gives Shoyo a once-over. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” says Shoyo. He covers his mouth with both hands, but even that can’t hide the yawn that makes his jaw crack and the back of his tongue stretch. “I didn’t get a lot of sleep. I’ll be more awake once we start playing, though! Really!”

Kenma eyes him doubtfully, but doesn’t question him further.

As far as greetings go it’s not exactly effusive, but Shoyo has given up on anything resembling excitement from Kozume Kenma in the last couple of months since they’ve started texting and emailing each other. Anyway, Shoyo is grateful Kenma isn’t making a big deal over what must be deep, dark circles under Shoyo’s eyes.

“Oy, Hinata, we’re starting warm ups,” Sawamura calls.

“We’ll talk over lunch,” Shoyo promises Kenma. He only receives a nod in response but it’s enough.

Shoyo hurries over to where the rest of Karasuno—minus Kageyama—is gathering. On his way Tanaka catches up to him from where he’d been talking with Nekoma’s mohawk wing-spiker and claps him on the shoulder. The impact gives Shoyo a bit of a jolt, though it wasn’t painful or even forceful. He’s just tired enough that at the moment, every physical sensation is a surprise.

Karasuno’s volleyball team had left school in the early morning—so early, in fact, that “middle of the night” would be more accurate. Shoyo had spent about five hours sleeping at Tsukishima’s house. Or trying to sleep. Between the excitement of the trip to Tokyo finally happening and the anxiety of being alone in a room with the guy he’s in love with, Shoyo had been too wired to relax. If he’d been able to rest on the bus it might have helped, but stupidly he’d sat next to Noya and didn’t get more than a couple of hours sleep.

Food and exercise will help him wake up fully. Food he’s already had, thanks to Shimizu and Yachi preparing breakfast bentos for the team the night before. Exercise will happen soon enough.

Or, so Shoyo thinks, until Ukai has them huddle up after warm ups.

“Hinata, I want you to sit out until Kageyama gets here,” he says, and Shoyo feels his stomach drop down to his feet. “Sugawara has spent more time playing with Narita, and without Kageyama and us unable to use your quick, we’ll do our best as a team if we focus on stability.”

“Okay,” Shoyo agrees, but it’s hollow.

He barely feels the pats Narita and Sugawara give him as the starting players head onto the court to play against their first opponent of the training camp. Shoyo thinks they’re called Shinzen. He’s not really paying attention.

“Hinata?” Yachi says, sounding worried.

Shoyo pastes a smile onto his face. “Just as well!” he says with false cheer. “I’m _suuuper_ tired right now, anyway.”

He goes to stand next to Tadashi in the warm up area outside the court, and it’s just like junior high. No, it’s worse, even though it should be better since he’s not sitting up in the stands this time, but Shoyo has stood on the court and been a starting player and _mattered,_ and now he’s just…

The reason makes perfect sense, too. Shoyo can’t fault Ukai’s logic, or resent the unavoidable truth he sees for himself as Sugawara executes plays with Narita that Shoyo’s never practiced with the third year setter. But with this, Shoyo can’t help but understand:

He’s only on the court because of his quick with Kageyama.

Shoyo’s still too short to be a real volleyball player. He’s not good at serving, and his blocks aren’t anything amazing. So what if he’s fast, and good at receives? If there’s no setter to keep up with him, that speed means nothing. And even with Kageyama…

The set Nekoma is scheduled to play begins on the next court over, and Shoyo takes his eyes off his teammates’ backs for a moment.

He blinks.

Kuroo is waiting in the warm up area while Nekoma’s libero is on the court, and next to Kuroo is Inuoka. But that doesn’t make sense, because Inuoka is a starting player, isn’t he? Shoyo hasn’t been texting Inuoka nearly as much as he has been with Kenma—did he lose his position? He looks at Nekoma’s side of the court and sees a very tall person with ash blond hair wearing a jersey with 11 on the back.

When Shoyo looks back at Inuoka, he sees Inuoka staring back, and his expression is just as confused as Shoyo feels.

*

Karasuno plays a total of four sets before lunch, and loses all of them. Shoyo performs the laps of flying falls with as much energy as he can gather in his exhausted state but his heart isn’t in it.

Lunch is in a cafeteria close to the gym, and when the coaches announce that they can “sit wherever” Shoyo immediately takes his tray over to where Kenma is sitting next to Inuoka and the quiet wing spiker Shoyo is almost certain is named Fukunaga. He expects Tadashi and Tsukishima to follow him, but when he looks behind him he sees they’ve already sat down by Ennoshita.

It stings a little, though Shoyo knows it shouldn’t. Seating arrangements at lunch don’t mean anything. And he knows now that Tsukishima doesn’t prefer Tadashi to him.

“Kenma,” Shoyo says in greeting, and stretches his mouth into the widest smile he can manage. “Good work this morning!”

“Um. Thanks.” Kenma chews on a piece of broccoli disinterestedly. “Where’s your setter? Kageyama?”

“Ah, well, he kind of failed one of his exams, so he had to take a make-up test this morning,” says Shoyo. He laughs a bit awkwardly. “He’ll be here in a few hours, though. Probably.”

Unless he dies at the hands of Tanaka’s sister’s driving.

“Oh.”

Inuoka leans forward. “Is that why you’re not playing?”

“Yeah,” Shoyo says. He can’t stop the bitterness that leaks out in his voice. “Um, what about you, Inuoka-san? What happened?”

“Oh, that’s because Lev finally learned all the rules, so Coach Nekomata wanted to put him on the court,” says Inuoka. He seems cheerful enough about it, but Shoyo suspects he’s a little bitter as well.

“Leave?”

“Haiba _Lev,_ ” Kenma explains in his quiet, dry tone. “He’s half-Russian, half-Japanese.”

Shoyo is completely distracted for the first time since Ukai made his announcement that morning. “Wah, really? Lev, is it?” He does his best to pronounce the unusual name like Kenma and Inuoka do. It sits heavy on his tongue.

“Yeah.”

“You said he didn’t know the rules until now?”

“Yeah, he’s a total newbie,” says Inuoka. “He just started playing volleyball for the first time when he started high school.”

That’s surprising. Shoyo’s watched the sets Nekoma has played—one of them being against Karasuno, so he could watch the entire thing without dividing his attention. Haiba Lev seemed spontaneous, maybe, and clumsy, but overall he played well.

Kenma must see the disbelief on Shoyo’s face, because he says, “Lev has a lot of natural athletic ability. I guess he’s always been good at sports. His serves are terrible, though. And his receives and passes suck. Like, really suck.”

“I’m super jealous,” Inuoka admits. “He’s that tall and naturally gifted! But I’m not going to lose to him.”

Privately Shoyo thinks that, with only a scant few centimeters difference between Inuoka and this Lev, complaining about a height difference in front of him of all people is just rude. He doesn’t feel like pointing this out. In any case he feels more inclined to sympathize with Inuoka instead of pick a fight.

Instead he says, “What does Lev mean?”

*

“You’re really okay with not playing?” he asks Inuoka as they drop their trays off to get cleaned.

“It’s super frustrating,” Inuoka admits. “Especially since I was good enough to be a starting player before, you know?”

“Yeah, I know.”

Inuoka gives him a kind smile. “As soon as Kageyama-kun gets here you’ll be back on the court, don’t worry!” he assures Shoyo. “And soon enough I’ll be on the other side of the net from you.”

“Yeah, until—” Shoyo bites it off.

“Hm?”

“Nothing.”

They’d been moving out of the cafeteria, but Inuoka stops him then, and pulls him away from the doors to let other people through. His hand feels warm on Shoyo’s shoulder.

“It’s not nothing,” says Inuoka. “What’s up?”

Out of all people to ask, it might as well be him, Shoyo thinks. He ruffles his hair and sighs. “You know how you caught up to my fast quick during the Golden Week games?”

“Yeah?”

“Well… I thought that was because you’re just so amazing, but…” Shoyo trails off. “Why are you turning all red like that?”

Inuoka’s hand goes to the back of his neck. “I’m not,” he says, which is a lie, because his cheeks are definitely flushed. “Keep going, keep going! This is about your quick?”

“Um, it is,” says Shoyo, letting out a breath to loosen his chest. “Sort of. It’s just… during our prefecture tournament, other teams started catching up to it. And I guess I should have expected that? But, it’s like, if the opposing team can catch up, then… then it’s not enough… even with…”

He can’t say it. If he says it out loud, then it becomes really real and he can’t pretend this hasn’t been brewing in him this last month alongside his complicated feelings for Tsukishima. Since when had he used thoughts of Tsukishima to escape thoughts of volleyball instead of the other way around?

But he doesn’t have to say it, because Inuoka looks down at him and nods slowly, saying:

“Then even with Kageyama, it’s not enough for you to stay on the court.”

Shoyo feels sick. “Mm.”

He’s paid so much attention to exams, to Yachi, to Tsukishima, to _anything_ that can keep his mind away from this, but if Shoyo’s being honest with himself, his stomach hasn’t felt settled since they lost to Seijou during the tournament. Because the reason they lost was him and his inability to do more.

“It’s frustrating, isn’t it?” Inuoka says.

“Really, really frustrating,” he agrees.

“Well, this might sound obvious, but…” Inuoka clears his throat. He’s still a little pink-cheeked, and his smile is a bit awkward. “If it’s not enough, then why not do more? Or do something else? That’s what these training camps are for, right? To learn everything you can to become stronger?”

Shoyo stares at him.

It’s like that picture that looks like a duck or a rabbit, depending on how you see it. It feels just like that—he’s been focusing on the feeling of “it’s not enough” but the meaning changes completely from one moment to the next.

“Inuoka-san, you really are amazing,” he says.

The blush returns in full force.


End file.
